The Misfit
by TheCartoonusMaximus
Summary: The Strange Case of Jackson Jekyll and Holt Hyde, the tale of one great big misfit! COMPLETE
1. Prologue: You Give Me the Chills

**Prologue: "You Give Me The Chills"**

Dr. Sydney Jekyll watched as the moving van drove away down the road as she carried boxes back and forth across the living room. Using her fire abilities, she melted away the tape that held the box closed so she could unpack it.

Looking into the box, she found that it entirely contained her son's belongings, not pots and pans as she had thought it was. Sighing, Sydney closed the box back up and carried it upstairs.

Looking in through the open door to her son's room, she could see the teenager sitting on his bed, playing with his chameleon. The lizard crawled up the boy's arm, digging its toes into the long sleeve of its master's yellow shirt.

"Jackson," The grown fire-elemental said, getting her son's attention. "I found one of your boxes downstairs."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mother!" The boy cried out as he jumped up to take his belongings from his mother's arms. "I can't imagine how it got there! I should have known it was mine!"

Sydney shook her head and tussled her son's jet black hair, earning a look of irritation from him as she smiled. "So? I'll bet you can't wait to go to school next week. Who knows? Maybe you'll actually make friends this year."

Jackson Jekyll looked at his mother for a moment, blinking in bewilderment. Ever since his father, Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll, had died six years ago, he and his mother had moved to a variety of different towns. He had gone to so many schools, but had never lasted very long at any of them. He was the perpetual 'new kid,' and he was also a very nerdy, geeky, antisocial boy. He had pretty much given up on the idea of having any friends, and took solace in further advancing his IQ by reading his father's old experiment notes.

"Mother, I doubt I'll make any friends this year. Just like last year. And I doubt I'll make any next year, either. I'm just not the popular type."

"Oh, honey," his mother sat on his bed, talking to him as he began sorting through some of his boxes. "You'll never have any friends if that's how you act. Besides, you'll be in a lot of the same classes as your cousin, Heath."

Jackson actually brightened at that thought. Heath was probably the only true friend he'd ever had growing up, and he would be a lot of fun to hang out with again...

Sydney smiled when she saw the quick look of excitement pass over her son's face. She knew the two cousins shared a special bond, one that made them as close as brothers, even through all the moves. She was happy to be settling down in New Salem, the town where the rest of her family lived. She would see more of her parents and her siblings, and Jackson and Heath could spend as much time together as they liked.

Just then, the doorbell rang, so she had to jump up to see who it was. Opening the front door, she found herself looking at a short, teenaged boy with yellow skin, pointy ears, and bright red hair, all trademarks of his fire-elemental heritage. "New Salem welcome wagon, wishing the Jekyll's a very warm welcome to our neighborhood! In fact, the welcome is so warm, it's on FIRE!"

"Heath Burns!" Laughing, Sydney wrapped her arms around her nephew, hugging him as tight as she could. "Look at you! It's been ages since I've seen you in person! You've gotten so tall and handsome!"

The young fire-elemental blushed a deep red as his aunt gushed over him. He considered himself to be handsome, and it was nice to hear that someone else thought he was... even though all the girls in school tended to ignore him completely.

"Did you bring Jackson with you, Aunt Sydney?" Heath asked the grown woman when she stopped hugging him. He didn't mean to make it sound like his aunt couldn't be trusted, but she had been known in the past to be scatterbrained; it was one of the reasons why she hadn't been able to keep a permanent job for so many years.

Sydney smiled good-humoredly. "He's upstairs in his new room, unpacking. It's the first door on the left."

Eagerly, Heath Burns raced upstairs, banging the bedroom door wide open and hugging his cousin. "Hey, Jackie-boy!"

"Heath?!" The human boy asked, gasping for air. "I think you just singed my hair or something."

His overheated cousin released him and backed off quickly. "Sorry, dude."

"It's okay." Jackson smiled, for the first time in many months. "How's life, flame-brain?"

"Well, it was going pretty lame this morning, 'cause all of my bloodies were all off with their ghoulfriends or something, but it got better because now I have my dorky, nerdy, normie cousin to hang with!"

Jackson blinked at the fire-elemental from behind his glasses for a moment before rolling his eyes in confusion. "Ummm... ooo-kay." He brightened quickly, though. "Do you wanna help me find and hook up all my video game equipment?"

"You know it, cuz!"

Hours later, Sydney poked her head into Jackson's room, finding both boys asleep on the floor. Open boxes were piled around them, and they were tangled up in cords and video game controllers. Jackson's pet chameleon, Crossfade, was curled up on top of a small television set.

Smiling, she whispered into the phone she held cradled to her ear, directing her words towards her brother. "Something tells me that Heath wants to spend the night here."


	2. Chap 1: Walking Down a Darkened Hallway

**I'd like to thank you nice people (miceaholic and S.L. Gibbs) for the lovely reviews!**

**miceaholic: I'm glad you liked the prologue, and I hope you enjoy Chap 1 just as much! Yeah, there are so many conflicting ideas for exactly how Jackson/Holt are related to the first Jekyll and Hyde, and I usually write them as being the grandson(s) of the original, with their mother being the original's daughter(s). But, for this story I stuck with their father being the Original deal, and their mother being a fire-elemental.**

**S.L. Gibbs: yeah, I stole the little flame-brain nickname from Spider-man and the Human Torch! Glad you liked my little throwaway gag!**

**To review, I don't own either 'Monster High' or 'the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.' I have no sense of fashion and could never create a line of fashion dolls, and I'm just not as amazing as Robert Louis Stevenson.**

**Please enjoy Chap 1!**

Chapter 1: "Walking Down a Darkened Hallway"

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_I was born in the year 18- to a large fortune, endowed besides with excellent parts, inclined by nature to industry, fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellowmen, and thus, as might have been supposed, with every degree of an honorable and distinguished future. And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public. Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of me. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

_._

_(text break)_

_._

Heath pressed his yellow finger against the Jekyll's doorbell, took it off, and pressed again, going back through this routine several more times. He couldn't help himself; it was a new school year, and he would finally have a real friend to hang out with who would put up with him and his stupidity!

Jackson finally opened the door, looking less than pleased as he winced and cleaned out one of his ears with his finger. He looked like he had been rushed in getting dressed, and he had left his shoes untied, his button-down shirt only halfway tucked in, and his black hair was soaking wet. Crossfade, the chameleon, sat perched on his shoulder.

"I was _taking a shower_, Mr. Trigger-happy!" He narrowed his blue eyes at Heath through his glasses.

Heath cringed. "Ah... sorry? But it really is time to start for school."

Jackson looked at his watch in surprise. "Oh! I didn't even realize what time it was!" He turned on his sneaker heels and rushed back into the house.

Heath stepped into the house, looking around curiously. Boy, the house was _quiet_. "Is Aunt Sydney here?"

"No, she went to work earlier this morning, and she probably won't be home 'til midnight." Jackson came running back to the front door. He had a green tote bag over his shoulder and a towel over his head, which he was drying his hair with.

"Ready to go?" Heath asked his normie cousin as he threw the towel to the floor, where Crossfade promptly curled up on it to go to sleep.

Jackson nodded, and the two cousins raced out the door.

Both boys were really wishing that New Salem High had a bus or something that they could just ride, but the folks running the school thought that the kids should all either walk or drive themselves. They were rather cruel, in this regard.

The two cousins had only gone two blocks of straight running before they were starting to slow down. Heath had been on the school track team for years, and he was used to running fast for long periods of time, but he knew that Jackson was not, and the nerdy normie was already tired out.

Heath sincerely hoped that he hadn't caused his cousin too much damage by the exertion or anything. Who else was he going to play 'Guitar Monster' with?

A large, black hearse with pink trim rolled to a stop beside the curb where the two boys were resting. They looked up as the window rolled down, and the driver leaned out to talk to them, noticeably being very careful to stay out of the sunlight.

"Hi, Heath! Is this your cousin that you were talking about? My new next door neighbor?"

Heath smiled in recognition. "Hey, D! Yeah, this is my cousin, Jackson Jekyll. Jackson, this is Draculaura. She lives in the house next to yours."

Jackson straightened up from leaning on his knees to meet this girl who drove a hearse. She had black hair that was dyed pink, pointy ears, and small fangs that poked out from between her lips. He became nervous when he realized that she was a vampire, but she was too friendly for him to be nervous for very long.

"Next door, huh?" he asked her when he caught his breath. "So you live in that house that was built to look like a creepy old castle?"

Draculaura giggled, clearly not at all offended by his description of her home. "Yeah, that's the one! My father is very fond of the old-fashioned ways, and he never really _left_ Transylvania behind." She shook her head suddenly, causing her ponytails to bob back and forth. "Anyway, you boys looked tired, so I thought I'd ask if you needed a lift to school or anything?"

"That'd be great, D!"

Both the boys climbed into the back seat of the vampire's car, happy to sit and watch the scenery fly by rather than race through it trying to make the bell.

Jackson couldn't help but stare when he realized that their driver had no reflection in her mirrors. All he could see of her was her earrings and clothing, floating in her seat.

He looked away when Draculaura noticed his wide eyes in the mirror and turned to look at him. She looked slightly amused.

"Sorry," he stuttered, embarrassed. "It's just... I've never actually really met a vampire before, so, um..."

She giggled. "It's alright. I'd rather be stared at than staked, so as long as you're not throwing holy water on my face or stabbing me with a pitchfork, I don't mind." She flashed him a dazzling smile. "Just be careful not to stare at everyone, though. I may be okay with it, but there are lots of other monsters who wouldn't like it. They would take it the wrong way, and who knows for certain how they might react."

Jackson nodded nervously. "So... what other kinds of monsters go to this school? Fire-elementals, vampires..."

Heath began counting types off on his fingers. "Gorgons, werewolves, zombies, minotaurs, ghosts, skeletons, mummies, sea monsters..."

"Pretty much everything you could possibly conjure up in your mind," Draculaura finished the list.

Jackson swallowed. "I don't even do well with humans, historically speaking. How am I even going to survive this... Monster High School?"

Draculaura bit her lip, feeling sorry for the normie who sat in her backseat. She didn't have the heart to answer him, not even to remind him that it was New Salem High, not 'Monster High.'

Then she brightened, and she glanced back towards the boys. "It's not like monsters are the only students at New Salem High! There are plenty of normies there, too!"

"Like Lilith," she added under her breath, an unhappy sneer on her face.

Jackson heard her and saw the change that came over her face, but chose to say nothing.


	3. Chap 2: Every Body Turns to Look at You

**Again, thank you guys for reading this, and thank you for following and reviewing it. I'm afraid this chapter's kind of short, but hey. It's here.**

**miceaholic: yeah, Draculaura is still sweet and innocent-seeming, but not to the point that she is on the webisodes and TV specials. She is still a vegetarian, though, but she also has an aura of mystery that shows itself later on.**

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Chapter 2: "Every Body Turns to Look At You"

_It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound a man's dual nature. In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I labored, in the eye of the day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

**a strange case**

Jackson stood perfectly still, staring up at the school. New Salem High was a large building, and it was built as if to look like an old, gothic style mansion. Statues of gargoyles kept watch on every side of the building, and a bell tower poked up from the center of the roof.

The young aspiring scientist had never seen anything like it in real life. He had seen similar places in old movies and books, but never had he been standing in front of such a place, much less been enrolled to go to school there.

"Pretty breathtaking, isn't it?" Heath asked as he playfully punched his cousin's arm. Clearly, he was very proud of the town he lived in and the school he attended, and he wanted Jackson to feel the same way.

Draculaura walked past them, a smile on her face. "Hurry up, boys, or else we'll all be late for class! And Heath," she added, turning to the fire-elemental. "Maybe you should introduce your cousin to Clawd or some of your other friends.

"Hopefully, some friends who aren't likely to eat him," she whispered under her breath as she headed for class.

Heath brought Jackson inside and showed him where his locker was, and then the two boys raced to get to their homeroom. They arrived just as the bell rang, and their teacher (who very much reminded Jackson of the Executioner) gave them a nasty look.

"Late on your first day, boys?" The teacher asked with a sneer, a thick Limey accent on his tongue. He waved a knife in their general direction before turning back to the chalkboard behind him.

Heath sighed as he took a seat, muttering a brief explanation to Jackson. "That's Mr. Hack. He... has a bad temper. Just try to keep your head low."

Jackson couldn't shake the feeling that he was going to die before he even finished his first day here at 'Monster High.'

The human boy was actually surprised when lunch period rolled around and he was still alive. Staring around the cafeteria, he began to wonder where exactly he was supposed to sit. The cafeteria almost seemed to be cut down the middle, as humans were being served and seated on one side while monsters were served and seated on the other side.

Not even thinking about that sort of thing, Heath headed towards the monsters' lunch line (or 'lurch line' as it was more commonly called) to get his food. He could see Deuce and Clawd sitting together at a table and waved to them to save him a seat.

Curiously, Jackson followed his cousin through the slow moving 'lurch line,' only to find himself staring at strange monster food that he'd never seen before. He would have lost his appetite, but apparently there are some varieties of human foods that monsters like as well. Happily, he settled for macaroni and cheese as his main dish, with a few hot wings on the side.

Heath set his tray down at the table where Deuce and Clawd were eating, gesturing for Jackson to sit beside him. "Hey, dudes!"

"Hey, dude!"

"Bro!"

He gestured to the human sitting beside him. "This is my cousin, Jackson. He just moved into town last week!"

"You're cousin's a normie?!" was the first thing out of Deuce's mouth. He regained his composure when he saw the look of disappointment on Heath's and Jackson's faces. "I mean, uh, that's cool. I'm Deuce. Deuce Gorgon!" He held his hand out towards the new boy, smiling broadly as they shook. "Hey, um, sorry about the whole 'normie' thing, dude. I dunno what I was thinking."

Jackson shrugged. "It's alright, I suppose. I mean, I'll probably need to get used to being called that sooner or later, anyway."

The werewolf broke in right then. "I'm Clawd Wolf. It's really great to have ya here, Jackson!" He considered the boy for a moment. "You look like the kinda guy who reads a lot, so I guess you don't play a lot of sports?"

"Well, I play a little basketball—casketball, I mean," he added quickly, seeing the confused looks on their faces.

_'I have a lot to learn about the monster lingo,'_ he thought to himself.

"Play you one-on-one later," Deuce said, grinning. "If you're up to it!" He jerked his thumb at Clawd. "Playing _any_ sport against a werewolf is just not fair, if y'know what I mean."

"Hey, just be glad you've never played against me on the night of the full moon!"

Deuce laughed a little, then turned back to Jackson. "So, you in?"

Jackson blinked, surprised and completely disarmed by all the niceness going around. "Uh... sure."

"Cool." And that was all Deuce said.

Jackson came to the conclusion that Deuce didn't spend a lot of time learning vocabulary words.


	4. Chap 3: Not Because You're Different

**Hey! Sorry I haven't been updating this thing - shame on me. So, anyway, here's the next chapter!**

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Chapter 3: "It's Not Because You're Different"

_And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly towards the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

[M-O-N-S-T-E-R H-I-G-H]

"... So, then my mom just packed up all our stuff and next thing I know, we're living in New Salem, USA!" Deuce threw the ball at the hoop above his garage. He grinned as the ball slipped through the net. "I still kinda miss Greece, but, y'know, I love America. Great clothes, great music..." He caught the ball as it bounced back to him.

Holding the ball for a second, Deuce turned and tossed it to Jackson. "What about you?"

Jackson dribbled the ball for a minute, unsure exactly how to answer. "My parents met one another in England, and they got married there and I was born there. My father died, and my mother kept moving around. First we moved all over England, then we came to the United States and moved around some more here."

Deuce watched in amazement as Jackson's hands moved. The ball was flying around and in between the boy's legs, and his hands seemed to instinctively know where the ball was going to go next.

Jackson stopped dribbling and looked up at Deuce for a moment, not noticing the gorgon's fascination. "I honestly don't know what it's like to live in one city for very long... not even one whole year!"

Whipping around quickly, Jackson hurled the ball at the hoop, making the basket with ease. "Outside of Heath, I don't know what it's like to have any actual friends or anything. Even the other geeks in the human schools didn't want to hang out with me very often." A wicked grin came over his lips. "I think I intimidated them."

Deuce had been staring at the ball the whole time Jackson was dribbling it and when the ball had gone sailing through the hoop without the normie even watching it, but now he turned his whole attention on the nerdy boy.

"Well, dude, I hope you can consider me as a friend!" He smiled, looking evil but not meaning any harm. "'Cause you're the first guy to ever give me a run for my money at casketball who wasn't a werewolf!"

Snatching the ball off the ground, Deuce hurled it right at Jackson's head, as if to hit him in the face. This was not something humans generally did to people they considered to be their friends, but, in the monster world, murder attempts were often considered to be a kind gesture among companions. In fact, it was not uncommon for monster couples to use what appeared to be acts of cruelty to prove their love to one another.

Jackson was processing all these facts and thoughts in his head even as his hands reached up to catch the ball just inches away from his nose and glasses. His heart was racing and his body was flowing with adrenaline all of a sudden, but he knew enough about monsters and had spent enough of his life with Heath to know that Deuce had meant it as a joke, presumably forgetting about his new pal's mortality.

So, instead of getting mad or even scared, Jackson just grinned and threw the ball over his head, making careful calculations before releasing it and letting it fly through the air.

He enjoyed the look of surprise that crossed over Deuce's face as the ball went back through the hoop.

Deuce made eye-contact with him, even through the sunglasses. "Okay, smarty-pants! Bring it on!"

"You got it!"

[M-O-N-S-T-E-R H-I-G-H]

"My main problem," Jackson began to explain when he and Deuce had finished their little competition. The two boys were now sitting on the front steps of the Gorgon house, gulping water and occasionally tugging at their sweat-soaked shirts. "My main problem is that I just really don't ever fit in anywhere. I mean, I was born a human, but I was raised by monsters. Therefor, I am too human to fit in with monsters, and I'm also too monster-like to fit in with humans. What category am I supposed to fall under?"

Deuce listened to him, then blew it off with a shrug. "Who cares? I mean, fitting _in_ is just so _out_, y'know? Don't worry about fitting in, dude, just worry about being yourself. People don't like you, that's their problem."

Jackson nodded, seeing the logic in his friend's way of thinking. "So, is that your philosophy for life? I mean, really, a belt buckle shaped like a cassette tape?"

Deuce just laughed, good-humoredly. "I wouldn't consider it a 'philosophy,' but that's the way I roll. Besides, I've got snakes growing out of my head! Fitting in was never an option for me, exactly. Luckily, most monsters just really don't care about that sort of thing."

Jackson listened quietly, emptying his water bottle. He decided that monsters were much cooler to hang out with than humans!


	5. Chap 4: Because You're So Scary Cool

**Since you all have been so patient in waiting, here's a second chapter even to read.**

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Chapter 4: "It's Just Because You're So Scary Cool"

_I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements._

_If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upwards path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous fagots were thus bound together—that in the agonized womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated?_

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

[M-O-N-S-T-E-R H-I-G-H]

Draculaura stood on the front porch of the Jekyll's house, right next door to her own, listening as the last ring of the doorbell resonated through the air, her fingers playing around with the handles of the pie plate she carried. She glanced around as she waited for someone to answer the door, happy to see the sun disappearing beneath the horizon. Bats were already flapping through the air, and she herself was itching to join them on the wing.

She mentally came back to earth though when the door opened and Jackson was standing there, greeting her with a friendly and easy-going smile.

"Hi, Jackson," she smiled at her new neighbor as she held out the pan to him. "I brought you and your mom a haunted house warming gift!"

"Oh, wow! Thanks!" He breathed deeply as he accepted the gift, looking up at her in surprise. "Is this... casketberry pie?!"

Draculaura shrugged with shame. "I didn't know what to make that a normie would eat, so I just made a monster dish. But, it's really, _really_ good-"

"No, it's okay, really!" His blue eyes met hers through his glasses as his lips pulled back in a smile. "I _love_ casketberry pie! It's not a normie food, that's true, but I absolutely _love_ it!"

The vampire girl smiled broadly, feeling a little relieved. It was then that she noticed something different about the boy. "You dyed your hair!"

Grinning at her, Jackson fingered his bangs, which he (with Heath's help) had bleached a bright yellow that afternoon, the yellow contrasting strongly with the black of the rest of his hair. "Something I thought I'd try out. What do you think?"

A sparkle came into her silver-y eyes. "I think it looks scary cool! I mean, most boys couldn't pull that sort of thing off, but on you... Fangtastic!"

Jackson couldn't help but chuckle at Draculaura's reaction, happy that someone liked his style, anyway.

A grown woman with yellow skin, pointy ears, and red hair came to the door. "Who's this, Jackson?"

"This is our next door neighbor, Mother. She brought us a casketberry pie!"

Draculaura beamed at the woman and held out her hand to shake. "It's so nice to meet you! I'm Draculaura, and I'd like to welcome you to our neighborhood!"

The woman smiled and shook hands with the teenaged vampire. "That's so sweet of you! I'm Sydney Jekyll, Jackson's mother, and we'd like to thank you for your hospitality!"

Draculaura continued smiling and chatting gaily, though she couldn't help but contrast the pair of mother and son in her mind. They were so very different from one another in appearance, but so very similar in behavior.

Soon Heath came to the door. "Hey, Jackson? I think I lost Crossfade."

"What?!"

"Well, I put him into his tank and I closed the lid, but then he just disappeared!"

Draculaura watched in amusement as Jackson's face twitched. He seemed uncertain about whether he should be annoyed or amused by his younger cousin. "Heath, Crossfade is a chameleon! They blend into their surroundings!"

Heath breathed a sigh of relief, happy that Jackson wasn't actually mad at him.

"Well, I need to be going," Draculaura explained, checking the time on her iCoffin. "It's Daddy-Daughter Night at my place, and my father is probably going to call me back any minute now or something!"

Even as she spoke, everyone could hear the menacing voice of Count Dracula calling her name. Loudly. _"DRACULAURA?! WHERE ARE YOU, YOUNG LADY?!"_

"Coming, Daddy!"

Heath grinned at her. "Places to go, people to bite?"

She smiled mysteriously at her neighbors. "Something like that. Anyway, gotta fly!" With that, she vanished into the night.

Sydney laughed quietly to herself as she took the pie from her son, heading to the kitchen with it. She knew that, given the chance, Jackson was liable to eat the entire himself in one sitting, leaving none for her... which would be a shame, because it smelled so good!

Jackson and Heath headed back towards Jackson's bedroom, going back to their game of Guitar Monster.

"Draculaura said that the bleach looks good on me," Jackson remarked, fooling with his hair for a moment. "What other things could I do to improve my look?"

Heath shrugged, a teasing smile on his thin face. "Ink? Piercing? Burning your bowties and sweater vests?"

Jackson glared at his cousin for a moment, stifling any giggles that would otherwise have surfaced from his lips.

The two boys pulled out their "guitars" as they continued their game, competing with one another to see which one was the really hard core rocker.

Heath couldn't help but feel some shame to find that Jackson could rock out better than he could, and it crossed his mind that his older, nerdy cousin was actually a little bit like a rock star. Jackson had even admitted to Heath once, many years ago, that one of his secret wishes was to be a rock star someday.

Heath laughed at that thought; Jackson Jekyll? _A rock star?_ The idea was so ludicrous! Jackson just wasn't cool enough, and he never would be.

Right?

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**Let me know what you thought, please!**


	6. Chap 5: Sinister Style

**I probably should have specified earlier on in the story that Jackson doesn't quite look the way he usually does yet. He starts out as a stereotypical teenager with bad fashion tastes, and over the course of the story we're going to see him become more and more the way he appears on the cartoons and in doll form, and then eventually into Holt. Sorry for the confusion!**

**But anyway, I still don't own any of the characters. And this chapter will introduce some familiar faces from 'Ghouls Rule,' who I also don't own. Enjoy.**

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**Chapter 5: "Sinister Style"**

_I was so far in my reflections when, as I have said, a side light began to shine upon the subject from the laboratory table. I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated, the trembling immateriality, the mist-like transience, of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired. Certain agents I found to have the power to shake and pluck back that fleshly vestment, even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion._

_For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply into this scientific branch of my confession. First, because I have been made to learn that the doom and burden of our life is bound for ever on man's shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure. Second, because, as my narrative will make, alas!, too evident, my discoveries were incomplete._

_Enough then, that I not only recognized my natural body from the mere aura and effulgence of certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted, none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp of lower elements in my soul._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

_._

[M-O-N-S-T-E-R H-I-G-H]

.

Jackson walked through the halls of New Salem High (he still called it 'Monster High' in his mind) one bright morning a couple weeks later. It was weird, walking through school all by himself, rather than having Heath trot along beside him. It was the first time in the school he'd actually been alone.

It was okay though; he felt comfortable enough, even with all the monster teens around him, to be by himself for a bit. He'd already memorized his classes and the classrooms, and had something of a map of the school worked out in his head.

The so-called 'normie' boy was pretty happy with his personal life too, since he'd finally won his days-long argument with his mother just that morning. After much going back and forth with her son, Dr. Sydney Jekyll had finally agreed that he could get a piercing.

She told him he couldn't get a tattoo though, and refused to discuss the idea any farther.

Jackson was okay with that – he'd fight that battle another time. He still wasn't exactly sure what part of his face he wanted to pierce, but he figured he'd decide that later on. For now, he just reveled in the fact that he'd fought his mother... and won.

Jackson walked up to his locker, spinning the dial on the lock with great ease, his nimble fingers reaching in for his Chemistry textbook. Another book fell out of his locker, this one with faded leather binding, and it landed on the floor between his sneakers.

He reached down to pick up his father's journal, running his fingers over the aged cover. He knew he shouldn't carry the diary with him everywhere, but he couldn't help it. Just having the book nearby was like having a trusted friend. The old diary of the infamous Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll was filled with wonderful theories, blasphemous concepts, and intellectual ideas. The pages were covered with scientific facts, and facts didn't lie.

Carefully, he slid the old book back into his locker, right between his Calculus and Dead Language textbooks, closing and locking the locker door behind him.

The poor boy started for his class but he didn't make it very far. He had barely gone five feet before rough hands grabbed him from behind and pulled, slamming the back of his head against the unyielding wall of lockers.

After the stars cleared away, Jackson opened his eyes and looked up, finding himself staring at two identical human boys who were clearly on the school's wrestling team.

The one holding him by the shoulder leaned over and sniffed Jackson's hair. "Yeah, just as I thought. Still got that 'new kid' smell!"

The other one snickered evilly. "Think we should initiate him to the bully system?"

Jackson was starting to become uneasy as he listened to them laugh over his head. He swallowed.

"What should we do first?" One of the bully jocks asked the other one. "Trash can? Swirly?"

"Actually, I was thinking wedgie!"

"But I wanted to stuff him in a trashcan!"

The two boys glared at one another over Jackson's head, both having different opinions on their bullying techniques.

Jackson decided to intervene just then, grinning sneakily up at the bullies. "If you two need some time to discuss this, I could come back later!"

He was surprised when they seemed to be actually considering his suggestion.

Another voice interjected before either one could say anything. "Well, well, well. Look who we have here. If it isn't Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle-dumber!"

Both jocks and even their victim turned to stare at the owner of the voice. It was a short girl with black hair and goth style clothing and make-up.

One of the bullies looked annoyed. "Zip it, Clair! This isn't any of your business!"

The goth rolled her green eyes and pulled out her cell phone. "Hey, I wonder who could be texting me? Whoa!" She pretended to read the screen. "The chess club gets to use the gym today? And the wrestlers have to practice outside?!"

The jocks became incredulous, and even released Jackson. "NO WAY!"

The goth smiled up at them sweetly. "Way."

"No way!"

"Way."

"We'd better go talk to Coach!" The first one said as he ran down the hallway.

His brother came after him. "Yeah! No group o' nerds is kickin' us out of the gym!"

The goth grinned as she slid her phone back into her pocket. "Child's play."

Jackson smiled at her gratefully. "Thanks. You really saved my hide."

"No problem. Messing with them always makes my day." She extended her hand towards him. "I'm Clair, by the way."

He shook her hand. "Jackson."

"Cool. See ya around!" So saying, she headed off down the hall.

Jackson watched her go, a little uncertain about the new friend he'd just made. He'd never actually met a _nice_ human before, and wasn't sure how to respond.

He shrugged and shook his head, clearing his thoughts as he picked up his tote bag from where he'd dropped it on the floor. He had to get to class, and being late was just not cool!

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**Hope you enjoyed it. Please review.**


	7. Chap 6: Mystery With a Smile

Sorry 'bout the wait, folks! But here we are now. (Been hitting writer's block on this durn thing.)

Sorry if I caused any confusion with Jackson; at the beginning of the story, he only looks like his nerdy, black-haired self, without the piercings and the tattoo and the hair dye. He gets those as the story progresses as symbols of his becoming less human and more monster.

But, this chapter introduces some familiar faces, and we see Jackson becoming just a bit more... Hyde-like.

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**Chapter 6: "Mystery With a Smile"**

_I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew will that I risked death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might, by the least scruple of the an overdose or at the least inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change. But the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at least overcame the suggestions of alarm._

_I had long since prepared my tincture; I purchased at once, from the firm of wholesale chemists, a large quantity of a particular salt which I knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient required; and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion._

_– __excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

_._

_text break_

.

A few days later, late on a Saturday night, Jackson was walking through the maul (the monster mall) with Deuce. He was going to get his eyebrow pierced, as he had decided on, and Deuce was going to get a tattoo or something.

"Your mom really gave you permission for a tattoo?" Jackson asked in bewilderment.

"She never actually said I _couldn't_, but that may just be 'cause I never really asked her!" Deuce cast a sort of half-smile at his new normie pal. "Dude, there are some things that monsters tend to not be so picky about. Tats happen. Often. An' besides, monster tattoo parlors don't care about your age or whether or not you have your parents permission. It's just a really low priority in our little plot of the world."

Jackson shrugged, letting it go. Sometimes, it was just very hard to keep up with Deuce's way of thinking and explaining, so this time he just didn't bother. "Whatever. Meet me back here whenever you're done."

"You got it."

**M-O-N-S-T-E-R H-I-G-H**

The two boys separated, one heading for 'Tattoos' and the other for 'Piercings.'

Minutes later, Jackson left the store, fingering the ring that had punctured his left eyebrow. This was not something that he would have done to himself in past years, but spending time with other monsters had really brought out the monster in him.

And the monster craved a new look.

Jackson stared at his reflection in a store window, very much liking what he was starting to see. With his dyed hair and new eyebrow ring, he was starting to look like a punk rocker or something. He had even worn his contacts that evening, instead of his glasses, and his new look was almost complete.

Jackson knew that Deuce would in no way be finished with his tattoo yet, so he headed into the bookstore to pass the time.

The bookstore contained many varieties of reading material, with popular bestsellers up at the front of the store and more practical books towards the back. Jackson was momentarily dismayed to learn that the 'Twilight' series was just as popular among monster girls.

He headed to the back, where he could see there was a science section – or, more appropriately, a 'mad' science section, since many of the books had been penned by Dr. Frankenstein, Igor, and other famous mad scientists. The books were fascinating to the young prodigy, and he wanted to sit down and read them, cover to cover, until he'd worn out the pages.

So focused was he on reading book titles and author names that he ran head-long into one of the other customers.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm such a klutz – "

"No, I'm sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going – "

After they had both finished babbling out their apologies and shaking their heads in confusion, Jackson started to stand up. The customer he'd run into was a girl, with decomposing skin, bolts in her neck, and thick stitches holding most of her body together. Her eyes didn't match, one blue and one green, and her hair was strangely black-and-white striped.

She struck him as being very, _very_ pretty.

Trying to hide the shyness that was creeping up his spine, Jackson held his hand out to her. "Here, let me help you up."

The girl beamed, the smile on her face absolutely breathtaking. "Thank you." She allowed him to haul her to her feet, still smiling broadly, and she watched as he bent down to pick up her books for her.

"Here's your books back," Jackson told her, handing her the stack he'd picked up off the floor. "And here's your hand." He gestured to where it was perched on his shoulder.

Her smiled faded, and she blushed. "Oh! I'm so sorry! I – "

"No, it's okay! Really!" He didn't want to start the 'I'm sorry!' game again, and instead just plucked her hand from his shoulder and held it out for her, helping her refasten it to her wrist.

Her blush and smile both came back at the same time. Jackson couldn't help but think how adorably cute she looked.

Her smile faded again when she looked out through the front of the store. Following her gaze, he saw that she was looking at Draculaura and a werewolf girl who he recognized as being Clawd's sister. Both were clearly waiting for someone.

"I have to get going," the stitched-up girl explained. "My friends are probably wondering what's taking me so long."

Jackson nodded. "I understand. I need to go meet up with a friend, too." He flashed her a smile. "See you around, then!"

"Yeah, see you!"

He gazed after her for moment as she left, then shook his head dizzily and, turning, started heading for the tattoo parlor.

**M-O-N-S-T-E-R H-I-G-H**

Deuce was still sitting in a chair, a needle filled with green ink being pushed in and out of his upper arm. The needle was being pushed in and out by a young lady with purple skin and red hair, her heart-shaped mask doing nothing to hide the scars and tattoos running from her face down to her arm.

It didn't take much for Jackson to realize why his friend was taking so long; the gorgon was getting a scale pattern done all the way from his shoulder to his elbow.

"Hey, bro!" Deuce called out, holding up his free hand as a greeting. "Nice eyebrow ring, dude!"

"Thanks." Jackson sat down in the chair beside Deuce, feeling and seeing everything through a sort of haze. "Sorry if I seem a little out of sync or anything. I stopped off in the bookstore, and I met this girl! Ah, _ghoul_ I mean."

"Was she hot?"

"Oh, yeah!"

Deuce grinned and fist-bumped his friend. "What's her name?"

"Well, maybe _met_ isn't the right word, exactly, but she's this super-cute little Frankenstein girl!"

"Ah, you mean Frankie," Deuce decided, realizing who the girl must be. "Frankie Stein. You'll see her at school."

Before Jackson could say anything else, a squid-monster walked up to him. "And what kind of tattoo would you like, young man?" He held up a poster that showed all the designs the parlor sold.

"Oh, I'm not actually here for... I mean, my Mom..." The boy trailed off as he became engrossed in all the available tats.

For a moment, he lost his mind.

"I'd like that one," he explained, pointing to a yin-and-yang symbol. "And I'd like it on my back, right between my shoulder-blades."

The squid nodded as he put the poster away.

Jackson became aware of Deuce staring at him as he removed his shirt, and he met his friend's gaze. "What?"

Deuce just shook his head and leaned back in his chair with a smile. "I was just wondering what sort of technique your mom was going to use to kill you."

Jackson fell silent at that, and he felt cold all over. _What was he doing? What had he said? Why had he requested a tattoo? Why was he laying on a chair in the tattoo parlor, his shirt sitting beside him and his back bared and waiting expectantly for the tattoo that his mother didn't want him to get?_

This is what was going through his mind even as he felt the tattoo artist's tentacles on his back, and as he felt the needle jab him.

After the initial jab, though, all he could think was, _'That hurts!'_

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**I hope everyone enjoyed it! Please review! 'Later!**


	8. Chap 7: You're Drop-Dead Gorgeous

**New chapter!**

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Chapter 7: "You're Drop Dead Gorgeous"

_The most racking pangs succeeded a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness._

_There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was the conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but an innocent freedom of the soul._

_I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature._

_– excerpt from the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

_[monster high]_

Jackson sat at the kitchen table, wearing his pajamas, absentmindedly dunking cookies into a glass of milk and occasionally even remembering to eat the cookie when he was finished.

It was really late on Sunday night, almost midnight and long past the time that Jackson should have gone to bed. But, he wasn't at all tired, so he was staying up late, munching on cookies and waiting for his mother to come home from work. Her job had such a crazy schedule; going in before the crack of dawn some days, coming home at two-o'-clock in the morning others... It was impossible for Jackson to keep up with his mother at all.

He was lost deep in thought at that particular moment, and all he could see was Frankie Stein. Her beautiful, mismatched eyes. Her striped hair. The pretty smile on her face...

Sydney entered the house just then, trying to be quiet at first so that she wouldn't wake Jackson up, but then she saw that he was still awake and allowed her shoes to clack against the floor.

"Hi, honey," she said, ruffling his hair as she walked past where he sat. She chuckled when he looked up at her in irritation.

Pouring a glass of milk for herself, she collapsed at the table across from her son and started eating cookies herself. "So, what are you doing still up on a school night?"

Jackson sighed, blowing the bleached bangs out of his eyes, his new eyebrow piercing flashing in the light for a moment. "When Deuce took me to the maul last night, I saw this girl. A monster girl. We talked for a minute, and now I can't get her face out of my mind."

Sydney cocked one of her red eyebrows curiously. Perhaps he had been entranced by a vampire, or a genie, or some other monster that he wasn't used to?

She watched as her son picked up a piece of scrap paper and a pencil and began doodling, making a simple drawing of a ghoul's face. Black-and-white striped hair emerged, as did bolts and stitches.

"A Frankenstein..." she murmured, more to herself than to her son.

Jackson looked fascinated. "Like, as in 'Dr. Frankenstein?' The mad scientist?" He spoke the name with a certain amount of adoration, the mad doctor in question being one of his idols.

He paused and looked sheepish for a moment. "Well, Deuce _did_ say that her name was Frankie Stein. I guess I should have put that together, huh?"

Sydney laughed quietly. "Well, even the genius prodigies can't win them all, sweetheart."

Downing the last of her milk, the grown fire-elemental stood and moved to set the glass by the sink. "Come on, Jackson. It's long past time for you to get some sleep. You don't want to nod off in the middle of calculus..."

She trailed off suddenly. She stood directly behind him at the moment, and she was shocked to see a tattoo poking out from the back of his pajama shirt.

Gripping the back of her son's shirt, she pulled it down and found herself staring at an inked yin-and-yang symbol.

"Did I or did I not distinctly tell you not to get a tattoo?!" She scolded him, raising her voice but trying hard not to actually yell at the boy. "What were you thinking?! You are in so much trouble, young man! I ought to hit you upside the head! As of now, you are grounded to your room! And you won't be allowed to..."

She ground herself to a halt when she realized that he wasn't even listening to her. Instead, he was staring at the picture he'd drawn of the Frankenstein girl, something of a dreamy expression on his face.

_'He has a crush!'_ She realized all of a sudden. _'For the first time, he has a crush on a girl and he can't get her out of his mind no matter how hard he tries!'_

It occurred to her that it was probably difficult for him, since he had never actually had a crush on a girl before. He had always played it safe and kept his nose in a book, and had seldom paid girls any attention at all.

She found herself smiling and giggling uncontrollably as she stared at the look on his face.

Jackson heard his mother giggling and turned to stare at her nervously. "What's wrong, Mother?"

"Nothing, sweetie. You're just so adorable when you're crushing on a girl!"

"I-uh-what... a crush?"

Jackson was struck by this thought. Did he have a crush? He'd never had one before...

He certainly was attracted to this Frankie girl. She was pretty. She was sweet. She was a fascinating specimen of scientific advancements, and he could do nothing to get the lyrical sound of her voice out of his head...

Maybe he did have crush. But, what should he do now?

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**Read and review, please.**


	9. Chap 8: High School Gives Me the Creeps

**Sorry it's been so long, guys!**

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**Chapter 8: "High School Gives Me The Creeps"**

_There was no mirror at that date, in my room; that which stands beside as I write, was brought there later on and for the very purpose of these transformations. The night, however, was far gone into the morning – the morning, black as it was, was nearly ripe for the conception of the day – the inmates of my house were locked in the most rigorous hours of slumber; and I determined, flushed as I was with hope and triumph, to venture in my new shape as far as to my bedroom. I crossed the yard, wherein the constellations looked down upon my, I could have thought, with wonder, the first creature of that sort that unsleeping vigilance had yet disclosed to them; I stole through the corridors, a stranger in my own house; and coming to my room, I saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

M-o-n-s-t-e-r H-i-g-h

Monday morning rolled around, and Jackson found himself walking through the halls of New Salem High yet again. He was struggling to keep his tired eyes open, since he had stayed up far too late for the past two nights.

He had dyed his hair, pierced his eyebrow, got a tattoo, changed his wardrobe dramatically, opted to wear his contacts rather than his glasses...

… and now he was becoming a night owl, too.

Jackson sighed and rubbed his eyes as he walked down the hall, trying to rub the sleep out of them. He desperately needed to work out his schedule, whether he had feelings for a girl or not, and get some decent sleep for at least one night.

He didn't _have_ to up so late, after all. It wasn't like he was a rock star with all-night gigs, or like he was going to late night parties or anything. Disc Jockeys stayed up all night, not nerdy normies.

He sat in Dead Languages class, as taught by a weird zombie guy of sorts named Mr. Rotter, but he just couldn't focus on the lesson. All Jackson could think was that the teacher bore a striking resemblance to the Phantom of the Opera, only he was wearing a coat similar to something that Jackson's own "father" might have worn.

Jackson felt his eyes begin to droop again, and he stifled a yawn as he raised his hand.

Mr. Rotter scowled at him menacingly. "Yes, Mister Jekyll?"

"May I please be excused to use the bathroom?"

The teacher considered for a moment, then agreed, handing the boy a hall pass.

Jackson left the classroom, heading down the hall. He passed by the hall monitor, a young gargoyle girl with a soft French accent, brandishing his hall pass for her to see.

She smiled at him sweetly and nodded, pink hair with blue stripes bobbing up and down.

Soon, Jackson was standing in the boys' bathroom, rinsing his face off with water and looking up to stare at himself in the mirror.

"Look," he told himself angrily. "When we get home, we are going straight to bed, and we are going to get some sleep? Are we clear?"

He wasn't sure why he had a habit of talking to himself and referring to himself as "we" when he did, but it was just a habit that he had grown up practicing. His father had often done so, back when he was still alive, but... for his own reasons.

Giving his face one last rinse, he finally exited the boy's room and began to head back to Mr. Rotter's Dead Languages class.

What _were_ they learning today, anyway? He had been struggling so hard to keep his eyes open that he hadn't been paying a lot of attention. Was it Latin... or was it Zombie? Oh well, no matter: Jackson was fluent in both languages and would ace any test that Rotter could throw at him.

He exchanged smiles with the gargoyle again as he passed by and he turned the corner...

… only to find himself in the wrong part of the school.

The hall monitor must have moved from her previous station. Why had he used her as a landmark in his mind?!

Thinking he had an idea of where he was, Jackson continued heading down the hall he was in, passing all of the completely identical doors. He finally reached one that looked right and stepped through it.

He found himself in a long, dark hallway. He started to turn around, intending to go back through the door, but he tripped over something and ended up falling down some sort of ramp, the door slamming shut as he fell.

Jackson groaned to himself as he landed hard on his backside. As he sat up, he began to wonder where he was. It almost seemed like... tunnels under the school or something.

"The Catacombs," he whispered to himself. He had heard of them – tunnels built beneath the school that led to the zombie side of town, thus cutting down on a lot of traffic. He had never fully been certain of their existence, but the tunnels were clearly real.

Standing up, he began to walk forward. He had no choice.

He was going to be missed, eventually. Would people come to look for him? Would he get in trouble? Would people think he'd gotten himself lost on purpose?

Feeling his way around down a long, twisted tunnel, the human boy's hand finally touched something that felt like doorknob. Figuring he had no better options, he turned the knob and walked through the door.

He squinted as he entered a fairly lit up room, then began to survey the place as his eyes adjusted. There were spider-webs and cobwebs everywhere, but the room was clearly lived in. A beautiful organ stood at one end of the room, with several lit candles set on it in various places.

A girl was sitting at the organ, playing a haunting melody. A large spider with a pompadour sat perched on her shoulder.

Finishing her refrain, the girl spun around in her seat and looked at the confused and startled look on Jackson's face. "Well, don't ya'll just look a sight!"

Jackson stared at her as the girl laughed. Something about her was very familiar.

The girl stood up and walked over to him. "Didjou getcherself lost, swee' pea?"

"I uh, yeah, I took a wrong turn and ended up down here... I'm supposed to be in Dead Languages with Mr. Rotter..." Shaking his head and rolling his eyes, the boy finally stuck out his hand towards her. "I'm Jackson."

"Ah'm Operetta," the girl answered, grasping his hand in hers and giving it a fierce squeeze. She suddenly clucked her tongue and her eyes lit up. "Now Ah know where Ah know you from! Ah saw you at the tattoo parlor awhile back, didn't Ah? Yin-an'-yang?"

"Oh, yeah. That was me." He smiled almost sheepishly at the pretty girl. Why did monster girls have to be so beautiful?

"Yeah, Ah remember now! Ah spent all night on yer snake friend's arm. How're his tats holdin' up, by the way? Jes' curious. C'n Ah see yer ink?"

Blushing, Jackson turned around and let her pull his shirt collar down, hearing the sounds of approval and appreciation she made.

"Looks real nice back there, shugah," she told him with a flirtatious wink. "Now, how's about we git you back up ta the surface world?"

Operetta grabbed a torch off a nearby wall and headed out of the room, Jackson following at her heels.

Over rivers, past strange looking gates and doors, up staircases, and avoiding the dragons and scargoyles they passed by, the two kids finally made their way back into one of the school's hallways.

"Here ya are, darlin,'" Operetta said, pointing a slender purple finger towards of a door. "That there is Mistah Rotter's class. Ya'll better git goin' if ya don't wanna git a tardy!"

"Thanks for all your help, Operetta!"

She chuckled to herself as she watched the normie scamper off to class. "Aw, 'tweren't nothin.'"

Jackson reached the door just as the bell rang, and he was almost run over by the hoard of students that fled the room.

He shrank back behind the door, hoping no one would notice him, but let out a small yelp when a person's face poked _through_ the door.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the ghost girl whispered with her airy voice. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's okay, Spectra," Jackson told her, putting his hand over his heart. "I really need to get used to seeing all manner of things, and a ghost walking through things should really be the least of my worries."

Spectra smiled at him and held out the familiar, leather-bound book. "I wanted to return this to you. You must have dropped it in the hall, and I found it on the floor. The name on the inside cover was 'Jekyll,' so I thought it might be yours."

His blue eyes lit up, almost a fire-like spark in them. "Thank you so much, Spectra! It's my father's diary, and I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost it for good!"

Hovering beside him, the ghost ghoul looked at him quizzically. "Doesn't your father get upset that you carry his diary everywhere with you?"

"I only wish he did," Jackson whispered. "My father is dead, Spectra."

Her purple eyes widened. "You mean, _dead_ dead? As in, never coming back dead?"

"Yeah, that dead. He literally drove himself mad and took his own life when I was little."

"Oh..." Spectra gaped at him. "I'm sorry."

Jackson nodded. "So, I like to keep his diary nearby a lot. The words that he wrote... the things he was feeling... It's like I still have a part of him with me at all times. Like there's a piece of his spirit written onto these pages."

The ghost smiled at him. "I understand."

The two friends parted ways, heading for separate classes.

Spectra frowned. She was a snitch, and she had read part of that diary. She didn't understand quite what it was she had read, and so she couldn't put it into her blog or her school newspaper or anything...

… but the words were enough to make her wonder about the future of Jackson Jekyll.


	10. Chap 9: When I'm With My Peeps

**Hello, everyone! Ready for an update?**

* * *

Chapter 9: "When I'm With My Peeps"

_I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I know, but that which I suppose to be most probably. The evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed that the good which I had just deposed. Again, in the course of my life, which had been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control, it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even as good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome._

_This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human. In my eyes it bore the livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine._

_And in so far I was doubtless right. I have observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at first without visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was because all the human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil; Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

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Jackson flashed a smile as he slid into an empty seat at a table on the human side of the cafeteria.

He smile was almost immediately returned by the small cluster of human friends that he'd managed to make in his time at the school.

Chad, Melody, and Kipling all smiled broadly at him and greeted him with a rousing chorus of 'hi!'

Clair lightly punched him on the arm, her way of greeting him, and went back to her food.

Kipling cocked his head at Jackson, his oversized ears shifting slightly. "Don't you normally eat lunch with your monster friends, or whoever...?"

"Well, yeah, I normally do," Jackson admitted with a slight nod. "I usually sit with my cousin, who is a fire-elemental, as well as some of my other... decidedly inhuman friends... but not today."

Chad looked at him curiously.

Jackson sighed. "Today the others are sitting with some new vampire students, and the new vampires have a bad habit of looking at me rather... hungrily. It makes me a little uncomfortable."

The other four humans laughed, even though, since they had been going to school with a large variety of monsters for years, Jackson thought they all probably knew the feeling.

He only half-listened as his friends' conversation (seemed like they were talking about teachers or something) as he began eating his lunch. He decided to skip straight to the desert that he had picked out, a bowl of blood pudding, since it was one of his favorites. Besides, you could only leave blood pudding out in the open air before too long, and then it was no good anymore. Hemoglobin tasted downright _nasty_ after it assumed room temperature!

… Although, maybe he shouldn't be making death puns about his food; it just seemed a bit morbid.

He savored the sweet taste in his mouth, licking the rest of the red liquid off the spoon. He may have been born human, but he had many strange little monster traits that were beginning to show through... and he was enjoying every second of it.

Melody watched in slight disgust as the strange boy sitting across from her sucked on his spoon, determined to drink as much of the icky, gooey, red stuff as possible. Blood pudding was a monster dish in this school, and humans tended to shy away from the gross concoction. Blood was the primary ingredient, of course, and it was never really revealed if it was animal blood or human blood; with monsters, even the nice ones, sometimes it was hard to tell.

Melody wondered to herself exactly how much monster was in Jackson's veins.

Shaking her head, she turned back to Chad, who was talking about some new album from his favorite band coming out today.

Jackson finished his pudding, occasionally conversing with Clair about some oddball class or another. He wasn't paying too much attention, really... his brain was somewhere else completely.

With a small sigh, he allowed his bored eyes to roam the cafeteria (although he personally thought of it as the _creepeteria_), searching through the many faces of both humans and monsters for one that would interest him.

A flash of green, a shock of black and white... his eyes zeroed in, gaping in awe at the girl that held his attention.

Frankie Stein was sitting with a crowd of girls – er, _ghouls_ – on the monster side of the creepy cafeteria. Draculaura and Clawd's sister were easily discernible to the young mad scientist's eyes, as were Cleo de Nile (who didn't know who she was?) and Abbey, who was some yeti chick that Heath was infatuated with and wouldn't shut up about. Ever.

Frankie was smiling and talking and laughing and joking along with her friends.

Jackson watched from his safe distance, deciding that every facial expression to cross over the green ghoul's face was truly beautiful, none more or less than the last. So inspired was he, he felt like writing a song about her.

He didn't even notice when the fingers of his left hand began to lightly strum on the table, forming some kind of a musical tune.

"Jackson? Jackson?" He vaguely heard Chad's voice calling to him, trying to draw him back to reality.

Clair gripped his shoulder and yelled in his ear. "Hey, JACKSON!"

He jumped, banging his knees on the table in a very painful way. "Ow... What?"

"You're not listening to a word we say," Chad tried to explain. "You keep staring off into space when a funny look on your face like you have a cru—" Realization dawned on him, and he smiled. "Sooo... who is she?"

"What are you talking about?! Just because I'm thinking you seem to think I have a -"

Jackson cut himself off. The short burst of commotion had caused a variety of other students to look towards their table, and Frankie Stein was one of them.

His eyes met hers from across the room, and they both smiled and blushed, feeling embarrassed and happy all at once.

Jackson hardly noticed when Chad, Clair, Melody, and Kipling all started snickering and giggling over their friend's predicament.


	11. Chap 10: You Can't Ignore Us

**Greetings to the people who are patient enough to wait for an update on this story! Sorry I'm so lazy with this thing. I promise I'll finish it though, no matter how long it takes me.**

**I do not own either Monster High or 'the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' nor do I own the special guest star Dracula.**

**I hope you all enjoy this next chapter.**

* * *

Chapter 10: "But You Can't Ignore Us"

_I lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second and conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before daylight from a house that was no longer mine; and hurrying back to my cabinet, I once more prepared and drank the cup, once more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and came to myself once more with the character, the stature and the face of Henry Jekyll._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

"Jackson!"

Said boy came running when he heard his mother call his name. "Yes, mother?"

Sydney was standing in front of the kitchen sink, washing the dishes. "I cleaned out the pan that Draculaura brought the casketberry pie in, and I would like you to bring it back over to her."

"Right now?"

"Right now. I know you: if you don't do it right now, you'll completely forget about it."

Jackson shrugged and picked up the glass pie-plate from the counter beside his mother. It would be kinda fun to return it; he'd get to see Draculaura's house up close!

Pausing in front of a mirror to check his appearance, the boy quickly licked his hand and used his saliva to slick back his unruly, bleached bangs. He didn't really see Draculaura as possible girlfriend material or anything, but it was always good to leave a nice impression on people.

A few minutes later, young master Jekyll was knocking on his next door neighbor's front door, pie-plate in hand. While he waited for someone to answer the door, he took a moment to study the building.

The Dracula manor looked very much like the castle or fortress that you might see on television, and he fully expected an empty suit of armor to peer our a window, or a horde of ghosts, or even a flock of bats.

Jackson was not disappointed.

Shortly, the door opened and a cloud of shrieking bats flew out, temporarily surrounding the mortal boy. When the bats cleared, Count Dracula himself stood in the doorway.

He held his cape around his body and bared his fangs in a menacing way, smiling cruelly the entire time. His Romanian accent practically rolled off of his tongue. "Good evening. I am Count Dracula. A pleasure to meet you, I'm sure."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jackson could see a flash of pink. Draculaura stood just behind her father, looking very concerned. As if she thought Jackson would be frightened off by her father.

However, fear was not an emotion that Jackson Jekyll was accustomed to.

Instead of screaming or crying or running away like most humans (and most monsters!) did upon meeting the infamous Count, Jackson simply smiled up the tall lord of the vampires.

"Hello, I'm Jackson Jekyll, your next door neighbor. I've heard so much about you, and I'm glad to see that it's all true."

Count Dracula and his daughter both paused, very much confused by the casual way that this human boy was treating the one and only Count Dracula.

Pleased with the looks on their faces but being careful not to show it, Jackson continued on. "My mom sent me over here to return this pan to you, and she also asked me to see if I could borrow a hammer? Do you have one? You see, I have this old _chest_ that I need to _stake_, and..."

He allowed himself to trail off there, seeing how pale the Count was quickly becoming.

Draculaura couldn't help but snicker to herself, although she certainly felt bad for how her father was probably feeling. But, it served him right! Who did he think he was anyway, always trying to scare everybody away like that? Especially someone he knew good and well was one of her own friends.

She watched as her father managed to pull himself back together just in time to politely excuse himself, and he quickly turned to leave.

"There's more to that Jekyll boy than meets the eye," she heard him muse under his breath.

Draculaura wondered what her father meant by that, but she didn't bother to ask any questions now. Maybe later.

Instead, she accepted the pan from Jackson. "Thanks for going to the trouble of bringing it back, Jackson!"

"Oh, it was no trouble! Besides, I was sort of using it as an excuse to see your house up close... and I even met your father!"

Draculaura blushed. "Yeah. Sorry about him. Since he's, y'know, Count Dracula, Lord of the Vampires and all, I guess he thinks that he needs to scare anyone that comes to the door."

Jackson looked at her, feigning surprise. "Was that him trying to be scary?"

The vampire girl giggled shyly. "You don't scare easy, do you?"

"I've grown up in a family that could easily roast me like a turkey on a spit if they're not careful and keep the heat down. I've learned to be cautious, not fearful. There's a slight difference between the two." He cocked a grin. "Besides... so long as he's not actively biting my throat, I don't have much to get freaked out about, do I?"

Another giggle. "No, I suppose not."

Draculaura smiled shyly. "Hey, Jackson? Have you met Clawd Wolf yet?"

"Yeah, I met him. We hang out sometimes."

"Listen. Every year, the Wolfs hold their annual boo-B-Q, and Clawdeen always invites me. I love the Wolfs and all, but sometimes they're just too much for one person to handle. So... how about you go with me?"

Jackson stared at her, blinking in confusion.

"I... I've never been invited to any form of social gathering before," he finally admitted.

"Well, it's not like it's a _huge_ festivity or anything. Just Clawd and Clawdeen, their parents and their brothers and sisters... possibly their neighbor Romulus because he and Clawd like to hang out... And besides, you know you want to study a pack of werewolves up close, don't you?"

"Well..." Jackson stammered, his scientific curiosity beginning to get the better of him. "I never _have_ seen a real werewolf pack before... it could be interesting..."

Draculaura smiled at him energetically. "Okay, it's a date then!"

He gaped at her dumbfounded. "'Date'?"

"No, no, not that kind of date!" The young vampire princess held up her hands in front of her, signaling that she meant something else completely. "I meant a date on the calender, an occasion, I swear! Not the other kind of date!

"Besides," she added while Jackson was breathing a sigh of relief. "My friend Frankie really likes you, and there's no way I could ever do something like that to her! I mean, what kind of friend would date your crush behind your back?!"

Jackson's blue eyes widened and he stared at her in bewilderment.

"Oops. I've said too much." She clapped her hand over her mouth. "Ah, could you just forget the last few sentences that flew out of my mouth? Um, yeah, thank you again for bringing my pan back, and I'll see you at school – BYE!"

With that she skipped back into her home and closed the door behind her, leaning against it for a moment. Draculaura hated to be rude to a friend like that, but she couldn't risk any more of her friend's secrets pouring out of her mouth.

If Frankie found out that she'd accidentally told Jackson that Frankie was crushing on him, Draculaura was dead meat! Even her immortality wouldn't save her from that!

* * *

Jackson stared at the Dracula's closed door in front of him for a minute, too stunned to move. He stayed immobile like that for nearly six minutes before managing to shuffle off the porch and stumble back towards his own home.

This was all just too much information for him to process.


	12. Chap 11: Here the Ghoul Kids Rule

**You guys ready for a double update?**

* * *

Chapter 11: "Here, The Ghoul Kids Rule"

_That night, I had come to the fatal cross-roads. Had I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prison house of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly toward the worse._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

It appeared to be just another normal day at New Salem High, or as normal a day in a place where both humans and monsters went to school together could possibly get.

It was hard, going to school in New Salem... or even living in New Salem at all. While on the outside, it appeared that humans and monsters lived together in perfect harmony, it wasn't exactly like that on the inside.

Sure, most of the people and/or creatures in New Salem really didn't care who was a what, but there was still the occasional bad apple or bigot among them that was biased.

And, unfortunately, Ramses de Nile and his daughters were some of those 'bad apples.'

"Come one, come all – monsters, that is!" Cleo de Nile yelled through the school halls, directing her voice into the megaphone that her zombie friend Ghoulia was holding. "Yours truly is holding the biggest birthday bash of the century, and I'm going to call out all the names of those whom I am inviting. If your name isn't on the list, that's just too bad."

Pulling out a long scroll, Cleo began to read off the names of all her friends and any other monster she deemed worthy enough to go to one of her parties.

"Deuce, of course... Draculaura, Frankie, Lagoona, Operetta..."

Jackson knew that he wouldn't be invited, so he chose not to pay any attention to Cleo's announcement. Besides, he wasn't a party kind of guy.

But, on the other hand, _not_ going to the party was really going to end up 'sticking in his craw,' as his uncle often said. It would only be one evening when Jackson stayed home or hung out with his human friends instead of his monster friends, but it would be a couple weeks if not _months_ before everyone stopped talking about it and saying that it was too bad that he wasn't there. Especially Heath.

Jackson sighed audibly and hid his face in his locker.

"Oh, and a final reminder!" Cleo called out with her voice, which was a strange combination between sounding sugar-sweet and sounding devious. "Normies aren't allowed at my house or my party, so you can leave all of your silly little non-monster friends at home!"

With that, Cleo smiled, flipped her hair, and began to walk down the hall towards one of her classes. Ghoulia groaned under the weight of the megaphone, the scroll, her own backpack as well as Cleo's, and Cleo's purse; but still, the zombie girl followed along at the heels of the Egyptian princess.

Heading into Home Economics, Cleo found herself being stopped right in the doorway when a boy's arm stretched across from one door pane to the other.

"Moment of your time, Cleo?"

She smiled brightly at the snake charming boy who blocked her path. "All the time in the underworld for you, Deuce!"

"Good," the gorgon answered with a nod. "'Cause there's something I really need to talk with you about, babe."

The popular monster couple of New Salem High exchanged special smiles that were reserved only for one another as they took their seats beside one another in the back of the room. All the way back in the shadows, the two young monsters could blend in and whisper and hiss between one another, and the normie teacher would be none the wiser.

"So, yeah, about your party..." Deuce began. "There's a good friend of mine that I think should be there, but he wasn't on your list."

Cleo cocked her head in surprise. "But... I thought that I invited everything who's _anything_! How could I have missed one of your casketball friends?"

"He's... not exactly a casketball friend, babe."

She looked at him in confusion. "You have friends that aren't on your casketball team?"

"Cleo, I have lots of friends that are not on 'my' casketball team!" For an instant, Deuce was just mad at her and how little attention she really paid to his life.

"Look, I just thought I already invited all your friends, alright? Clawd Wolf, Manny Taur, Heath Burns-"

"Manny's not my friend, Cleo!"

"-Invisibilly, Bram DeVein, Gil Webber, Slow-Moe... Who am I missing?"

Deuce sighed. "Jackson. You're missing Jackson Jekyll."

A sneer of disgust. "Isn't he that little normie nerd you seem to spend entirely too much time with?"

"Cleo..." He shot her a look of irritation. "Sure, Jackson's a normie, what's that got to do with anything?"

"Normies aren't allowed, that's what it's got to do with anything!"

Deuce sighed. "Look, babe. Like it or not, Jackson has a place in our world. He belongs with monsters, not hardly with normies. And, as such, he should be allowed to party with us. C'mon, babe, do it as a favor to me?"

Cleo frowned, but eventually shrugged in a dismissive manner. "Alright, as a favor to you. But I want everyone to know that having a normie at my party wasn't my idea. Clear?"

"Crystal."

Cleo stewed for a minute, angry at her boyfriend. Why did he have to be so Ra-damned nice to other people and so Ra-damned influential of her? Couldn't he just let well enough alone?

"Hey, Cleo?"

"What is it, Deuce?"

He smiled at her and placed a kiss on her cheek, just below the gemstone that was a part of her face. "Thanks, babe."

"Oh... anytime, babe."

* * *

"Yo, Jackson!"

Said normie glanced up as he exited the science classroom, hearing his name being called by the gorgon who had to be his best friend in all the known world. "Hey, Deuce!"

"Yeah, hey," the kid with the snakes on his head answered, a fiendish grin on his face. "Listen, dude – get out your party outfit, 'cause you're coming with to Cleo's party!"

"Huh?"

Jackson blinked in confusion, certain that he'd heard wrong. Or maybe Deuce hadn't been paying that much attention to what his own girlfriend was saying.

He shook his head. "Nope. I'm not going. You heard Cleo: it's monsters only. And, despite my family relations and my inhuman tendencies, I am not a monster."

Deuce cocked his head in confusion. "Well, you hardly qualify as human, dude. I know you, and I've seen normies before. Dude, you're not like them. You're... more like a monster."

Jackson sighed. "I know."

"So? Come to the monsters' party. I talked to Cleo, and she's agreed to let you come as a favor to yours truly! C'mon, man! It'll be stone-cold fun!"

Jackson tossed the idea around in his head. "I dunno, Deuce... I've never really been invited to a party before. Any kind of party. By anyone." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "It's... a bit much to take in."

"Dude, you really need to relax. Chill out, bro!"

He shook his head, almost decisively. "No, I can't go. I'd be so awkward and clumsy and I'd probably trip and embarrass myself and ruin Cleo's party completely. I... no. I'm not going! There's no way you could get me to go! Never in a million centuries -"

"Frankie will be there."

Jackson looked up at the grin that rested on Deuce's lips, teasing him with the mere thought of Frankie Stein.

There must have been more to this Stein girl than he'd thought; the simple concept of her name as spoken to him by his 'best bro' was enough to send all logical thought right out the window!

_Frankie will be there. Frankie will be there. Frankie will be there..._

With a small growl that erupted from deep within his throat, annoyed that something so simple as a girl's name should have such an effect on him, Jackson finally conceded.

"Alright... alright... I'll go."


	13. Chap 12: Come On, Don't be Shy

Chapter 12: "Come On, Don't Be Shy"

_Even at that time, I had not conquered my aversions to the dryness of a life of study. I would still be merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least) undignified, and I was not only well known and highly considered, but growing towards the elderly man, this incoherency of my life was daily growing more unwelcome._

_It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery. I had but to drink the cup, to doff at once the body of the noted professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde. I smiled at the notion; it seemed to me at the time to be humorous; and I made my preparations with the most studious care. I took and furnished that house in Soho, to which Hyde was tracked by the police; and engaged as a housekeeper a creature whom I knew well to be silent and unscrupulous. On the other side, I announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde (whom I described) was to have full liberty and power about my house in the square; and to parry mishaps, I even called and made myself a familiar object, in my second character._

_I next drew up that will to which you [Utterson] so much objected; so that if anything befell me in the person of Dr. Jekyll, I could enter on that of Edward Hyde without pecuniary loss._

_And thus fortified, as I supposed, on every side, I began to profit by the strange immunities of my position._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

"How the hex did you get an invite to Cleo's party, anyway?" Heath asked, his voice almost sounding suspicious. "I thought normies weren't allowed, and, well... No offense, cuz, but..."

"Yeah, I know, I know. By your high standards I'm nothing but a lowly normie, not fit to even hang out with in public regardless of familial status."

Heath looked shocked, apparently not realizing that Jackson was being sarcastic. "No, that's not what I meant at all! You're a scorchin' cousin, and I like hanging out with you! It's not my fault if you prefer to spend time in the library while I'd rather be running track!"

Jackson grasped his cousin's face, forcing him to turn and look at him, stopping right in the middle of the sidewalk they had been walking on. "Heath, listen to me very closely. When I'm talking like _this and using this tone of voice, it is called 'sarcasm' and is not meant to be taken seriously_. Understand?"

"Oh!" The fire-elemental blinked rapidly, his brain working overtime to absorb this new piece of information. After a moment, he straightened and rolled his eyes flippantly at the human. "Oh, well, how do you know I wasn't being sarcastic right back at you?"

Jackson sighed in exasperation. "Heath, you're my cousin and I love you and you're one of my best friends in the world, but sometimes you are an IDIOT!"

Heath stuck his purple tongue out in Jackson's vague direction, snickered a little, and soon the two boys were once again on their way towards the de Nile house.

"So, how did you get invited again?"

Jackson shot a cheeky grin at the other boy. "It helps to be such a good friend to Deuce Gorgon."

"Deuce? What does Deuce have to do with... Oh, that's right! They're dating! I forgot."

Jackson sighed again. "Honestly, Heath? What am I so worried about – it's a wonder I allow _myself_ to be seen in public with _you_!"

"Are you being sarcastic again?"

Jackson chose not to answer that one. They arrived at the pyramid-shaped house that the de Nile's lived in anyway, so all conversation between the two boys was dropped.

Cleo's place was hopping, with monsters everywhere, mostly dancing.

Heath raced over to watch Clawd engage in a pizza-eating contest with a hydra boy, while Jackson hovered near the wall and the door, trying very hard not to freak out completely.

He didn't like crowds. He didn't like loud music, and weird tunes that were playing were giving him a headache. And no one here really wanted him around, anyway.

"Bro!"

The small human suddenly found himself in the boa constrictor hold of Deuce, who'd snuck up on him from behind. The hug didn't last too terribly long though, which was good because Jackson had been having trouble breathing.

"Glad you could make it," Deuce told him, clapping him on the back. "I'll be right back, there's someone I want to intro with you." With that, he disappeared into the crowd again.

"Hi, Jekyll." A voice spoke from... apparently nowhere.

Jackson looked around quizzically, trying hard and failing to find the owner of the voice. He jumped when he felt a hand land on his shoulder, and he spun around out of reflex.

"Invisibilly!"

William "Invisibilly" Phaidin smiled cheekily. "Wow, I've only been here for six minutes and already I've scared someone! I'm now officially awesome!"

"Yeah," Jackson agreed, holding his hand over his heart in an attempt to slow down the haggard beating. "Awesome. Totally."

Billy beamed at him, temporarily vanishing into thin air again, leaving his smile behind as if he were the Cheshire cat. "You come with anyone, Jekyll?"

"Um, my cousin and I came together, but not like a date or anything if that's what you mean."

Invisibilly gave another cheeky grin. "What? You're not dating Heath? You'd probably be cute together..."

Jackson stared at the Invisible Boy for a moment, then shuddered. "When you re-materialize, where exactly do you leave your brain?"

The walking vanishing act laughed. "I always blame my insanity on those weird experiments that my dad used to do to himself! And then I just laugh and move on with my life!"

The more normal of the two shook his head, quickly changing the subject. "Did _you_ come with anyone, Billy?"

"Yeah, actually. I came with the ol' girlfriend." He pointed up towards the DJ booth at the other end of the room, where Spectra was trying her darn hardest to musically mix the party.

Billy winced. "She's... not exactly the best disc jockey, I'll admit, but I still love her."

Jackson frowned, putting a hand to his temple to help the headache that was quickly growing behind his skull.

Spectra couldn't handle the DJ equipment, and very quickly the music was beginning to sound... quirky. The different speakers were all turned up and down at different levels, and the music just didn't sound at all right by the time it was hitting people's ears. And besides, the music she was selecting were old, haunting melodies that monsters couldn't exactly dance to.

Very quickly, Cleo stalked over to the DJ booth, where everyone could see her yelling at Spectra but, thankfully, couldn't hear her.

Shortly, Spectra dove into the floor and then reappeared near Jackson and Invisibilly, looking miserable.

Her invisible boyfriend wrapped his arms around her. "Nevermind that dynastic diva, Spec. I like the spooky refrains you had going there!"

Spectra shook her head. "No, Cleo's right. I'm a complete and total failure at disc jockeying. I can't even remember why I wanted to try it in the first place."

She squeezed glowing tears out of her eyes. "Can... can we just go home, Billy? Please?"

"Sure, Spec." Invisibilly wrapped a partially visible arm around her shoulders and led her towards the door. "Partying is totally overrated anyway."

Turning, he called out to the crowd, his broadest, cheekiest grin on his face. "Later, posers!"

And, with that, the ghost girl and the invisible boy vanished into the inky black night outside.

Cleo, not at all bothered by her treatment of one of her own friends, promptly grabbed the microphone and called into it. "Operetta! Report to the booth! Immediately if not sooner!"

Jackson glanced to another corner of the room, where Operetta was standing. She was talking with the school rebel, Johnny Spirit, and apparently having a keen time; she didn't look happy when she heard Cleo call her name.

Soon, the two of them could be seen arguing at the DJ booth, but just as quickly Operetta had settled down with the record player and was enjoying herself quite thoroughly.

"Ya'll ready t' git down with yer bad selves? Ah know Ah sure am!" She let out a deranged cackle.

Jackson was interrupted from massaging his temples by Deuce, who was leading another person in his direction.

"Yo, sorry it took awhile, but... it's not always easy to convince a girl to come with you, y'know?"

Jackson stared dumbfounded at the person whom Deuce had led over to him.

Deuce cleared his throat, then gestured to each of them. "Jackson Jekyll, Frankie Stein. And something tells me that you two are gonna get along just fine." And with that he walked away, bro-fisting Clawd as he walked past.

"... um... hi, Frankie..."

"... hi, Jackson..."

It took a few minutes, but the two eventually overcame their discomfort and relaxed, talking to each other with relative ease. Jackson liked the way Frankie laughed at all his sarcastic quips, and Frankie seemed pleased that Jackson didn't mind being occasionally shocked by her.

He was an odd one, alright; he rather liked the tingle he got from her electric current. Besides, it served as a distraction from the raging headache he was getting from Operetta's 'psychobilly' tunes.

The two began to talk about their interests, finding common ground in science and 'mad' science. Frankie also mentioned that she wanted to be a monster-human relations ambassador when she grew up... unfortunately, she wasn't quite sure if she would ever really grow up, since she was built from various parts of dead people.

Jackson just shrugged, somehow not creeped out. "I imagine you might age a little bit over the years, but... well, if you get older and you really want to start looking like an adult woman, you could always get some replacement body parts."

It was a particularly odd, off-the-wall conversation, but the two teens seemed to enjoy it.

Operetta's music got louder and weirder, and before long Jackson was actually clutching his head and crying out in pain.

"Jackson!" Frankie's concerned voice sounded much further away than it was to his swimming head. "Are you alright?!"

"I'm not... I don't..." He tried to focus on her face, but he could barely see her through the haze of red and blue that clouded his vision. His feet acting on their own, he raced out the door, seeking solace in the cool night air. "I'm sorry, Frankie!"

He couldn't see Frankie anymore, but he imagined that she was probably hurt. She seemed so innocent and vulnerable; he could just imagine her with tears falling from her eyes...

"I'm sorry," he whispered as he collapsed on the ground outside the de Nile's house.

When he was feeling better, he slowly began to stand up again, finding himself standing beside the fountain that was out front.

Jackson breathed in and out, watching the alligators that swam around in the fountain like koi fish. He could feel his headache fading away to nothing, and his vision was quickly clearing.

"I should probably go home..." he whispered to himself. "I'll tell Mother that I blacked out, and maybe she'll have some sort of idea for making my head feel better."

He glanced back at the pyramid, considering the party that was still going on inside. "I should find Heath, and tell him about..."

He trailed off as the front door was suddenly thrown open, and the freaky tunes that Operetta was playing soon attacked his ears once again.

Jackson clutched his throbbing head and screamed in agony.


	14. Chap 13: the Party Never Dies

Chapter 13: "The Party Never Dies"

_Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first that could plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my imprenetrable mantle, the safety was complete. Think of it – I did not even exist! Let me but escape into my laboratory door, give but a second or two to mix and swallow the draught that I had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his stead, quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man who could afford to laugh suspicion, would be Henry Jekyll._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

Operetta sighed. She enjoyed playing DJ, she really did, but right now she just wanted to go back and dance with Johnny Spirit some more, maybe flirt with some more boys.

But, Cleo was pretty adamant that Operetta needed to do the music, since Spectra had failed so epically. So, the Southern Belle stayed right where she was.

Until a hunky blue guy appeared by her side out of nowhere.

His voice was loud, and all he had to do was open his mouth to get everyone's attention. "Hey! This ain't no party!"

Everyone turned to stare at this newcomer, each one wondering where this guy had come from.

He glanced around, his yellow eyes showing approval. "This is a _PAAAAR_-TAY! Whooo!"

Operetta looked him up and down, very much liking what she saw. "And who might you be, hon?"

"Name's Holt Hyde an' donchu forget it, Red! _Whoa!_" His eyes lit up like Halloween lights all of a sudden. "Are them things real, genuine records? Oh man, I've always wanted to take a spin with the old-school stacks of wax!"

Seeing her chance, Operetta stood up and backed away from the table, gesturing for this new boy to sit down in her seat. "Well, why don't ya take a whack at it, darlin'?"

The blue boy grinned broadly at her and settled down into the seat, brushing his fingers over the records with the air of an expert and bringing the microphone to his thick, blue lips.

"Who's ready to party?" he sang/screamed into the mic, effectively getting everybody's attention. "Yo' boy, Holt Hyde, is gonna work his magic on these righteous wheels of squeal!"

He left one of Operetta's psychobilly records on one of the players, but he switched out the other one for a heavy metal mix. The strange combination came out sounding a little bit like crazy rock and roll, but it had a good beat going and it was perfect to dance to.

Operetta fled the booth, jumping right back into the crowd, and soon she was dancing with Johnny Spirit and about three other boys and having a keen time of it.

Cleo was a little ticked at first that Operetta hadn't even asked her permission to pass the job off to some boy who she'd never even seen before – but he must be cool, because how else did someone get into a Cleo de Nile party? – but she calmed down when this 'Holt Hyde' boy brought her back into the limelight.

"Ev'rybody give a big SHOUT OUT to Cleo de Nile for throwin' the best party in the underworld!" He sang into the microphone with that loud voice of his. Everyone cheered and clapped and yelled compliments to Cleo.

It just made her day... er, night.

* * *

The party lasted long into the night, everyone dancing and having blast with their new DJ keeping them going. He came up with the best mixes and he was, in general, fun and excitable to be around.

But, finally, in the wee hours of the morning, Cleo decided enough was enough and she began throwing monsters out, calling out loudly that the party was over.

Heath was wandering around, questioning the whereabouts of his cousin. He'd already tracked down Deuce and Clawd and asked them, and they'd told him to go ask Frankie. But, before he could do that, Heath would have to _find_ Frankie, who he realized was probably somewhere with her ghoul friends.

Searching around as the guests were all ushered out the door, Heath became aware of laughter and squeals coming from the direction of the DJ booth. He turned to look at it in confusion, seeing that there was a swarm of girls hovering around it.

"What's going on?" He asked as he approached the cluster. He wondered if maybe someone had been injured, and whether or not he should fish out his camera to take a video to post to his FrightTube account; people screaming in pain or yelling in embarrassment were always good for his account!

Looking over Draculaura's shoulder, however, he realized that it was just the girls all fawning over that weird blue guy.

"You're so funny, Holt!" Rochelle was giggling. The twins, Meowlody and Purrsephone Werecat, were purring in agreement on either side of her, looking like they were going to rub against Holt's legs any minute.

Heath rolled his eyes and turned to walk away, pausing when his eyes landed on the one girl that he'd been looking for. "Hey, Frankie? Can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Sure, Heath."

The Stein girl moved away from the crowd, a half-dreamy smile still gracing her green lips.

Heath cut right to the chase. "Have you seen Jackson anywhere? I need to be getting home, and I can't seem to find him!"

Frankie's smile faded away to nothing, being replaced with an entirely different facial expression, one that was hard to read and being kept carefully neutral. "I don't know. He ran out the door awhile ago, and I don't know where he went. He probably went home already."

The fire-elemental paused for a moment, barely aware of Frankie walking away. Jackson had already left? Without telling him? And had stood up Frankie? That wasn't very Jackson-like at all.

"Yo! Heath!" a voice interrupted his thoughts, which were still trying to connect and formulate some sort of theory.

Heath looked up to see that kid (What was his name? Holt... Snide? Or something?) calling to him from the stage.

Holt seemed friendly enough, but he still had an almost wicked look on his face, although that alone wasn't uncommon among monsters. "You wanna help me load up these new toys that Cleo gave me? If ya do a good job of it, I'll letcha be my official roadie!"

Roadie? Roadie the new guy that just walked into a room of strangers and suddenly had friends coming out of his ears? Roadie the guy that was surrounded by eager hot babes at all times? Roadie for this blue guy that must have been born the crowned king of awesomeness?

Heath ran up to the stage, smiling and nodding his head eagerly, abandoning all thoughts of Jackson in favor for this Holt person.

"Move aside, ladies!" Heath called out, gently nudging Robecca and Toralie out of his way. "Official roadie for team Holt, coming through!"


	15. Chap 14: Freaky, Chic and Fly

Chapter 14: "Freaky, Chic, and Fly"

_The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was part from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And this conscience slumbered._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

Sydney was sitting up in the kitchen, sipping some tea and reading the newspaper. She was waiting for her son to come home, although she wasn't entirely sure when the party would be over. She knew that she should have asked either Jackson or Heath when the party was supposed to end, but she just couldn't bring herself to ask Jackson anything like that.

After all, it was the first party he'd ever been invited to, any kind of party, ever, and he was so excited. He'd been nothing but a bundle of nerves for the past few days, apparently able to think of nothing but making a good impression on all the other party-goers. She didn't have the heart to butt in, even for something so trivial as the time.

She almost jumped out of her yellow skin when she heard a footstep on the front porch and a key in the lock.

"Jackson must be home," Sydney said to herself with a smile. She pulled her robe tighter around herself as she stood up, hoping to see that special little smile on her son's face that she was starting to become accustomed to.

She headed to the front of the house to greet her son, but stopped undead in her tracks when she got a look at the boy standing before her.

"Hey, Mom!" the boy greeted her. He smiled at her broadly, bright yellow eyes glittering with a strange degree of excitement that had never even once been present in Jackson's eyes.

Sydney looked him up and down. Yes, he was indeed her son, that much she could plainly see. But he hardly resembled the familiar Jackson Jekyll.

He had hair with fire-tones in it that nicely complimented his yellow eyes and his blue complexion. His clothing was a bit on the wild side, with pinstripes and flame-prints and other crazy patterns.

He pulled the earbuds connected to his MP3 player from his ears. "Can I have a snack, Mom? DJ-ing is an awful lot of hard work!"

His mother opened her mouth and gaped at him for a moment, finally finding her voice and nodding to him. "Uh, sure thing, honey... There's a few bananas on the kitchen table."

"Thanks, Mom!"

'Mom...' Sydney couldn't get over it. Refused to get over it, even. Jackson always called her 'Mother,' his voice full to overflowing with nothing but love and respect. But this boy... he called her 'Mom' so casually; she could still here the love and respect in his voice and see it in his eyes, but it wasn't quite the same as when Jackson addressed her. It was more laid back and casual, the way one might address a close friend.

She watched as the new and blue version of her son devoured three bananas, barely pausing in between bites to chew. He had put the earbuds of his MP3 back into his ears, as if to block out the world, and she could hear him humming something along with the music.

She could hear the music itself, too, come to think of it. It was faint, but she could hear it from across the room all the same.

Walking across the kitchen floor, Sydney took the player from the boy's pocket, ignoring his protests as she turned the volume down.

"But, Mom!" the boy complained around a mouthful of banana.

Sydney's yellow nose crinkled in disgust. "Honey, don't talk with your mouth full. And you shouldn't listen to music so loudly, you'll go deaf."

The blue faced boy shrugged submissively, apparently willing to let his mother have a few wins.

"So," Sydney said with a small sigh, trying to figure out how to talk with this altered version of her son; good grief, she didn't even know if he still accepted 'Jackson Jekyll' as his name or not! "How did the party go?"

He beamed, eager to tell her all about the music and the girls and how everyone loved him. The more he talked, though, the less like Jackson he seemed; he enjoyed being the center of attention, while Jackson was happy to be a wallflower; he was loud and obnoxious, while Jackson was quiet and thoughtful; and he seemed to care little about other people on a personal level (he even admitted that he'd gone as far as to manipulate Heath into carrying all his equipment for him!) while Jackson was very caring towards others at all times.

"But, there was kinda this bad moment," the boy admitted, a strange look coming over his face. Sydney's heart leaped, for it was a scared, sad, lost sort of look she'd seen often on Jackson's face. "I was runnin' the music an' stuff, an' I look over an' I see this Frankie Stein girl sitting there, drinking punch and looking completely miserable! She seemed upset about somethin' and I … I dunno. I guess I just didn't like the look on her face was all. It made me feel... not right."

He was struggling to find the right words to describe his feelings, and Sydney didn't press him.

When he had finished his last banana, the two of them headed down the hall, heading for bed to get a little sleep before morning came.

Sydney stood in the doorway, watching as her son collapsed into his bed exhaustedly, falling asleep as soon as his fiery head hit the pillow. He soon began to snore lightly and drool on the pillow.

Sydney stood over her son's sleeping frame, a loving smile gracing her orange lips. Reaching down, she gingerly pulled the earbuds from his ears, turning his MP3 player off and setting it on his bedside table.

She almost jumped when his body burst into flame a few minutes later, the flames beginning at his feet and climbing up to his head, extinguishing just as soon as they'd leapt into being. In their wake they left no longer the body of the blue-skinned version of her son, but rather the very familiar Jackson.

The fire-elemental woman retreated from her son's room, softly closing the door behind her. What had happened to her son? When had he developed these strange, new abilities, and where did they come from?

"Hyde," she whispered to herself, remembering at long last her husband's second name. "Jackson is also a Jekyll with a hidden Hyde side."

It was scary, being suddenly struck with the realization that your child is actually two different people, and Sydney couldn't help but lay on her bed just across the hall, her body curled up into a ball with her knees tucked beneath her chin, her red eyes fixated on her son's bedroom door.

Her late husband had had two personalities, and that had caused him to go mad; to do terrible things; to go as far as to commit suicide.

She didn't want to watch as the same thing happened to her son.

"I won't tell him," she decided. "Harry hated his Hyde side, and that's what drove him insane and caused him to kill himself. I don't want that to happen to Jackson!

"I won't tell him. At least... not yet."

It was quite awhile before the shocked mother finally drifted off to sleep, but the entire time she slept she was plagued by terrible dreams.


	16. Chap 15: Where Student Bodies Lie

Chapter 15: "Where Student Bodies Lie"

_Into the details of the infamy at which I thus connived (for even now I can scarce grant that I committed it) I have no design of entering; I mean but to point out the warnings and successive steps with which my chastisement approached. I met with one accident which, as it brought on no consequence, I shall say no more than mention. An act of cruelty to a child aroused against me the anger of a passer-by, whom I recognized the other day in the person of Utterson's kinsman; the doctor and the child's family joined him; there were moments when I feared for my life; and at last, in order to pacify their too just resentment, Edward Hyde had to bring them to the door, and pay them in a check drawn in the name of Henry Jekyll. But this danger was easily eliminated from the future, by opening an account at another bank in the name of Edward Hyde himself; and when, by sloping my own hand backward, I had supplied my double with a signature, I thought I sat beyond the reach of fate._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

Jackson spent most of his weekend holed up in his room, feeling miserable. All he could think about was the way that he'd run out on Frankie a few night ago, and he was getting sick and tired of reliving that moment in his mind every three minutes.

When Monday finally came around, he sought out the stitched-up girl in the halls of New Salem High, hoping that she wouldn't be too mad at him but he would completely understand it if she was.

School was almost out by the time he finally found her, and even then it took him a few minutes to summon up enough nerve to approach her.

"... Frankie?" he asked, finally walking over towards where she was talking with Draculaura and Clawdeen. "Would you mind... um... Could I talk you for a minute?"

Frankie nodded and followed him away from her friends so that they could talk in relative privacy.

"Um, well, look," Jackson began, feeling extremely embarrassed. "I uh, I'm really sorry about the other night. I really don't know what happened there."

"That's... that's alright," Frankie answered him, chewing on her lower lip. "You didn't look like you were feeling too well, I'm sure you needed to get home..."

"No, I messed up. I shouldn't have just run off like that, no matter what the reason. I should have at least given you an explanation."

"No, really, Jackson, it's all good. I'm glad that you're feeling better now, though." She smiled up at him shyly.

He returned her shy smile to her just as awkwardly. "So, um, yeah... Did you have fun? At the party, I mean? Anything interesting happen?"

"Why? You want to know what exactly you missed out on?" She teased him, coaxing a real smile out of the two of them. "Well, now that you mention it, there _was_ this great DJ that showed up. You probably ran into him on the way out, because he came in only, like, two minutes after you left."

Jackson's brow furrowed in confusion. "I didn't see anyone on the way out."

Of course, that may not mean anything, now that he thought about it, as he had been so out of it that he wouldn't have noticed if there was a whole rock band outside.

Frankie shrugged. "I guess you just missed him, then. Anyway, his name was Holt Hyde and he was really cool, although no one seems to know where he came from or how he heard about Cleo's party. It's kinda weird."

"He probably read it on Spectra's Facespook or Critter account," the human answered, waving the DJ's strange appearance off. His eyes widened all of a sudden and he turned to stare at Frankie. "Did you say his name was '_Hyde_?'"

She nodded. "Yup. Recognize the name? Is it someone famous?!"

"Er, well, sort of..." How ever could he explain something like this to her? "What did he look like?"

Frankie whipped out her iCoffin and began tapping her green fingers across the screen. Within a matter of seconds she pulled up a selection of pictures that she'd taken at the party of the blue-skinned boy. She held the device out for her human friend to see.

Jackson gazed at the images studiously, taking in every single aspect of the strange boy named Holt Hyde. He allowed his eyes to trace Holt's jawbone and hairline, as if trying to memorize the way the other boy looked.

His face was familiar to Jackson, and it took the young Jekyll precious few seconds to figure out why; it was the face he saw in the mirror every morning.

There was something familiar about the strange glint in the Hyde's golden eyes, too, but it took Jackson a few minutes to realize what it was that was so familiar. He had seen that glint in a few old photos and some long forgotten memories.

It was enough to make him swallow nervously.

'It can't be,' Jackson Jekyll thought to himself, sweat breaking out on his brow. 'Hyde is dead. He couldn't... but this one... and I... I have a …'

"Are you feeling alright, Jackson?" Frankie's voice broke into his thoughts, dragging him back to the present world around him. "You don't look so good."

"I'm not feeling so good, Frankie," he admitted. "I'm really sorry, but I think I need to go use the restroom. I'll talk to you later."

Frankie nodded, watching as the normie strode quickly down the hall.

* * *

Jackson didn't even bother to check if he was alone in the bathroom, and he walked over the row of sinks, placing his hands on each side of the basin and leaning over it to stare at himself in the mirror.

He stared deeply into his own eyes, searching for that horrible, all-too-familiar glint. He couldn't find it, though, no matter how deeply he looked.

'I don't have a Hyde side,' he thought to himself fiercely. 'I _can't_ have a Hyde side.'

The young Jekyll became vaguely aware of other boys and even teachers in the restroom, walking past him and looking at him oddly. He paid them absolutely no heed and continued studying his own face.

"I know you're in there," he whispered under his breath, just low enough that no one aside from a passing werewolf could have heard him. "And I want you to stay _in there_, and not _out here_."

But there was no answer for him.

* * *

**(I am so sorry for those who were waiting for an update. I was working so hard on other things that this story had completely flown out of my mind. So, leave a thank you for KaterinaF because it was really her review that reminded me that this story existed at all, leading me to not only continue writing it, but even to update it here.)**

**Also thank you to everyone who has left reviews, or even hit the follow or the favorite buttons. Ya'll rock!**


	17. Chap 16: She's Got Me Falling Apart

**Hey, guys! I am here with another chapter! Enjoy. ~**

**(fair warning: this one is weird and it delves into Jackson's mind. Nothing too exciting happens, but, ya never know, you might like it.)**

* * *

**Chapter 16: "She's Got Me Falling Apart"**

_Some two months before the murder of Sir Danvers, I had been out for one of my adventures, had returned at a late hour, and woke the next day in bed with somewhat odd sensations._

_It was in vain I looked about me; in vain I saw the decent furniture and tall proportions of my room in the square; in vain that I recognized the pattern of the bed curtains and the design of the mahogany frame; something still kept insisting that I was not where I was, that I had not wakened where I seemed to be, but in the little room in Soho where I was accustomed to sleep in the body of Edward Hyde._

_I smiled to myself, and in my psychological way, began lazily to inquire into the elements of this illusion, occasionally, even as I did so, dropping back into a comfortable morning doze. I was still so engaged when, in one of my more wakeful moments, my eyes fell upon my hand._

_Now the hand of Henry Jekyll (as you [Utterson] have often remarked) was professional in shape and size: it was large, firm, white and comely. But the hand which I now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of the mid-London morning, laying half shut on the bedclothes, was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swarth growth of hair._

_It was the hand of Edward Hyde._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

Jackson lay sprawled out over his bed, his arms and legs dangling over the edges of the mattress beneath him, his blue eyes staring up almost blankly at the ceiling above him. The chameleon, Crossfade, was laying beside him, tail tucked around his scaly body.

Jackson closed his eyes, blinding himself to the world around him, and focusing instead on everything within him. He began to access his memories, trying to call to mind the night of the party.

The boy, this Holt Hyde kid, had gone to the party. Others had seen him and interacted with him. If he and Jackson really were one and the same as the young Jekyll believed they must have been, then surely he could locate and bring to mind memories of how this Holt Hyde had spent his night.

It took quite awhile, nearly an entire hour, but Jackson finally began to make cracks in the mental barrier between his own memories and that of Hyde.

_He stood up from his stance of crouching beside the fountain filled with alligators, his yellow eyes staring around him wildly._

_Music... music... music... people talking... a party. A party... where?_

_He approached the pyramid-shaped building he stood in front of, hearing the noise and the music and wanting more of it._

_Cleo's party... Who was Cleo?_

_He saw Operetta operating the music... But, how did he know Operetta? Where had he met her?_

And so on and so on ran the twisted, mangled, confused memories of Holt Hyde. The boy had little or no idea where he was, or what he was doing.

_But that didn't matter. He just had to act like he knew what was going on, because surely if he didn't act that way then others would see his weakness._

… _Holt Hyde was not weak. Couldn't be weak. He couldn't ever be caught at a disadvantage._

Jackson swam through Holt's memories and thoughts, feeling lost and alone and terribly confused. It was like trying to arouse a distant nightmare that was dreamed during the night but has been all but completely forgotten by daybreak.

It was strange, examining this new, extra consciousness. Jackson knew that it was only an extension of his own mind that had recently been added, like an extra room that is built onto an already existing house, but it felt as if he were wandering around in a stranger's house.

That's really what he felt like: as if someone had left their home in a hurry and left everything in a disorderly state, and he had come along and broken in and was now rifling through all of their possessions.

"I feel like a criminal," he thought to himself. But, he reminded himself, this mind was his own, too. This was merely the portion of his brain that he occupied when he became Holt Hyde. He lived here, and had every right to enter in and study the place.

So, now he knew the insane truth – he was two people, both Jackson Jekyll as well as Holt Hyde. A strange case to be sure, but not, by no means, unheard of.

Now that he was aware of this phenomenon, Jackson puzzled over another question as he slipped out of Holt's corner of his brain and began to occupy his own space again. This other question was infinitely more complex, and it might take him months or even years to discern the answer to the riddle.

What was it that triggered his transformation into Holt Hyde? What was it that turned the Jekyll into a Hyde, and vice versa?

Jackson sat up from his bed, having regained control of his body just then, and moved to stare at himself in the bathroom mirror.

"I know you're in there, Holt," he began, fully aware that he was talking to himself and not giving a care. "So, tell me, how do I get you out here?"

He received no answer, of course. He hadn't honestly expected one.

"Okay, have it your own way... Y'know, I really need to stop talking to myself. It's a bad habit. People are liable to think I escaped from an asylum or something if I keep talking like this. You got that, Jackson? Stop talking to yourself... Oh crypt, I'm doing it again..."

Shaking his head in exasperation, the boy ambled back to his bedroom, collapsing face-first on his pillow.

Hearing a low growling sort of noise, Jackson raised his head just enough to see Crossfade perched in front of him, head cocked to the side in a curious manner.

"My life sucks more than a hungry vampire right now, Crossfade," the boy said to the lizard, as if it were an explanation. "First off, I'm developing an alter ego and slowly losing my mind. I'm going to be wearing strait jackets instead of sweater vests if this keeps up, if you know what I mean. And then there's all my other little issues."

He rolled over so that he was laying on his back again, once more staring up at the ceiling. "Frankie's my friend, and I can't help but feel that I really messed up with her. I know I hurt her feelings, and I don't like that thought."

A small grin grew across his face when Crossfade stuck his long tongue out at him. "You're right, Frankie's more than a friend. I … I want her to be my girlfriend. I want to ask her out on a date. But... I can't do that."

Crossfade cocked his head again, confused.

"I'm scared, Crossfade. I've never been on a date with any girl before... especially not one that I really, _really_ like. I mean, if I was just going to spend a few hours with Draculaura or Clair, that would be perfectly fine. But... this is _Frankie_. I can't... The mere thought of it makes me nervous.

"Besides, I'm only now beginning to realize how complicated my life it going to be. I should try to sort myself out before I go out and drag some poor, defenseless girl into my life."

Jackson almost smirked as he glanced up at his Weberella poster on the wall. "Currently, my life is quickly becoming a labyrinth of a spider-web, and I don't want her to get trapped in it. 'Come and see my pretty parlor, said the spider to the fly.' I can't do that, no matter how utterly _ghoul dang hot_ the fly is!"

Jackson began to laugh to himself, making poor Crossfade very nervous.

"I think I've picked up a trait or two from my Hyde-side!" the boy exclaimed. "I was only in his head for a few minutes, but I've already adapted to the way he talks!"

After a few minutes of mirth, though, Jackson came back to his right mind and bit his lip worriedly. "What's wrong with me?"

He looked miserably as Crossfade, knowing that he would receive no answer but asking anyway. "What's happening to me?!"


	18. Chap 17: She's Stealing My Heart

Spring Break has finally arrived, so please enjoy this update!

* * *

Chapter 17: "She's Stealing My Heart"

_I must have stared upon it [his hand, which resembles Hyde's hand] for near half a minute, sunk as I was in the mere stupidity of wonder, before terror woke up in my breast as sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals; and bounding from my bed I rushed to the mirror._

_At the sight that met my eyes, my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened Edward Hyde. How was this to be explained? I asked myself; and then, with another bound of terror – how was it to be remedied? It was well on in the morning; the servants were up; all my drugs were in the cabinet – a long journey down two pairs of stairs, through the back passage, across the open court and through the anatomical theater, from where I was then standing horror-struck._

_It might indeed be possible to cover my face; but of what use was that, when I was unable to conceal the alteration in my stature? And then with an overpowering sweetness of relief, it came back upon my mid that the servants were already used to the coming and going of my second self. I had soon dressed, as well as I was able, in clothes of my own size: had soon passed through the house, where Bradshaw [one of Jekyll's servants] stared and drew back at seeing Mr. Hyde at such an hour and in such a strange array; and ten minutes later, Dr. Jekyll had returned to his own shape and was sitting down, with a darkened brow, to make a feint of breakfasting._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

It was the day of the Wolfs Boo-B-Q. The one that Draculaura had invited Jackson to attend with her just a few weeks ago.

So much had happened since then, though, it felt like so much longer than just a few measly weeks.

Jackson was standing in the front hallway of the huge castle that his next door neighbors lived in, rocking back and forth on the heels of his feet, waiting awkwardly for Draculaura to finish fixing her hair (or whatever it was she was doing and taking so long to do). As he waited, she became aware of Count Dracula standing in a nearby doorway, studying him.

"Good evening, sir," Jackson said respectfully. He really hoped that the Lord of the Vampires wasn't still upset with him about the stake joke; Jackson may not have been afraid of the man, but he knew it would not be in his best interest to become Dracula's least favorite person.

The Count nodded a greeting at him stoically, his head tipped to one side just a bit. "There is something different about you from last time we met."

The normie boy stared up the grown vampire with wide eyes. He had heard rumors that Count Dracula could sense monsters, but he'd never known if it was true or not. Was the Count sensing the inkling of a Hyde within him?

"Do you feel a monster inside me?" Jackson asked without thinking, only realizing how stupid it sounded when the words were already out of his mouth.

Dracula cocked an eyebrow, seeming almost amused in a cruel sort of way. "Yes. Yes, there's more to you than you appeared at first. What did you say your name was?"

"Jackson Jekyll, sir."

The vampire paled a little bit. "Your name is 'Jekyll?' And you have a … a Hyde. Tell me, boy, are you the son of Henry Jekyll?"

The boy wet his lips and nodded.

Dracula frowned and looked away. "Harry and I used to be good friends... but then _he_ came along..."

Jackson could tell that the word 'he,' spoken with so much vehemence, meant Edward Hyde.

Dracula shook his head and turned, walking away, leaving the young Jekyll alone with his thoughts, scattered as they were.

So, Dracula used to be friends with his father. The very idea of the Vampire Lord befriending anyone was strange enough, but the lowly Dr. Henry Jekyll of all people?! A normie nobody?! Apparently they were close enough that Dracula called the man by his nickname, 'Harry,' rather than his given name like most people did.

The entire concept seemed so... surreal.

And the vampire had sensed the presence of a Hyde within Jackson.

Jackson fiddled with his eyebrow ring absentmindedly, lost deep in though. Everything was just so... confusing... all of a sudden.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden appearance of Draculaura, who bounced down the large spiral staircase looking very much like a pink fairy with long ponytails. "Hi, Jackson! I'm so glad you could come!"

"Hi, Draculaura," he answered with a slight smile. "You're looking pretty today."

The little sparkle bat princess winked at him sweetly and began ushering him to the door. "Well, let's get going, then! I never like to show up late."

"And yet, you've kept me waiting for almost forty-five minutes while you did... What were you doing?"

Draculaura began to count everything off on her fingers as she slid into the front seat of her hearse. "Well, first I straightened my hair, then I decided I wanted to have it curled instead, so I curled it but then I changed my mind and straightened it again so that meant I had to change out all of my jewelry to match but then my clothes didn't match the rest of my look anymore so I had to change everything I was wearing and then my make-up didn't look right and wouldn't you know it but then I decided I wanted my hair curled after all and-"

"Nevermind." Jackson sunk down into his seat, staring out the window as the neighborhood went by slowly. "Hey, Draculaura?"

"Yes?"

"Have you... Have you heard about this kid named 'Holt Hyde?'"

She looked at him as if he'd asked her if she had fangs or not. "Well, of course I have! I mean, who hasn't?! Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's kind of hard to explain. I guess... I think I've maybe got some connection to this guy, but I don't know a lot about him." He fixed his ghoul friend with a hard look. "What do you know about him, exactly?"

Draculaura shrugged. "I've only met him the one time. At Cleo's party a few weeks ago. He seemed alright, though. He was definitely cool, very popular. Everyone wanted to meet him. Almost every ghoul wanted to go on a date with him, everyone wanted his autograph, and no one wanted the party to end. Because if it ended, that meant Holt would have to go home."

She tapped the steering wheel thoughtfully. "He was so good looking and talented, it was amazing! No one could keep their eyes off of him for a minute. Although..."

"... What?"

"He did have a … bit of a mean-streak," the sparkle bat admitted reluctantly, as if she didn't want to have to say anything at all bad about the Hyde boy. "He would seem nice enough, but if you hung out around him for very long you could see that he could be a real jerk. I mean, we could all see how he was manipulating Heath, and I'm pretty sure I saw him lie to more than a few people. And he tripped Slow-Moe on purpose! I know he did!

"But no one wanted to stop him because... because he was so awesome, I guess."

Jackson stared dumbfounded at Draculaura, conflicting emotions running through his heart.

His alter-ego had done such awful things? He'd done that to Heath? And Slow-Moe? And no one wanted to stop him, just because they thought he was cool?!

This was just messed up. Why did this suddenly have to be the story of his life?


	19. Chap 18: You Make Me Howl at the Moon

**Hey, guys, and welcome back. We're about halfway through the story and I'm glad to hear that you guys are all enjoying this brainchild of mine.**

**(Please, never feel bad about reminding me to update this thing. I have most of it written out, I just often forget to update it on here. Never feel bad if you feel inclined to yell an "Update!" at me in the reviews or anything.)**

**Having said that, we're doing another double-update as we further explore the strange life of Jackson and Holt and their place in Monster High, so let's get right to it.**

* * *

**Chapter 18: "You Make Me Howl At The Moon"**

_Small indeed was my appetite. This inexplicable incident, this reversal of my previous experience, seemed, like the Babylonian finger on the wall, to be spelling out the letters of my judgment; and I began to reflect more seriously than ever before on the issues and possibilities of my double existence. That part of my which I had the power of projecting, had lately been much exercised and nourished; it had seemed to me of late as though the body of Edward Hyde had grown in stature, as though (when I wore that form) I were conscious of a more generous tide of blood; and I began to spy a danger that, if this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanently overthrown, the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine._

_The power of the drug had not been always equally displayed. Once, very early in my career, it had totally failed my; since then I had been obliged on more than one occasion to double, and once, with infinite risk of death, to treble the amount; and there rare uncertainties had cast hitherto the sole shadow on my contentment. Now, however, and in the light of that morning's accident, I was led to remark that whereas, in the beginning, the difficulty had been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late gradually but decidedly transferred itself to the other side. All things therefore seemed to point to this; that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

The young Jekyll was shaken from his thoughts as the hearse made a sharp turn, pulling up next to a house.

Jackson looked out the window at the small, suburban home. The house looked basically okay(a bit of a fixer-upper but not too terrible), but the yard was messed up, the grass upturned and many holes dug up in the soil.

In fact, now that he looked around, he saw that the entire neighborhood was like that.

Jackson realized that he was staring too much, and he turned to look at Draculaura, his face a mixture between questioning and apologetic.

Draculaura considered the strange look on his face before understanding dawned on her. "This is a werewolf neighborhood, Jackson. This is how they live."

She shrugged good-naturedly and climbed out of the hearse, a broad smiled on her face as she called to her boyfriend and her best friend. "Clawd! Clawdeen! We're here!"

"Draculaura!" Clawdeen called out, racing out of the little shack called a 'house.' The she-wolf came around to other side of the hearse and hugging her best ghoul.

Clawd looked up from the grill he was helping his father clean, his eyes lighting up as he set them on the vampire girl. "Hey, D!"

Hesitantly, Jackson managed to climb out from the vehicle, almost shocked back into the car when he was suddenly greeted by multiple werewolves. Not only did Clawd and Clawdeen both greet him by name, but eight other wolves suddenly called to him as well.

"Hey, Jackson," Clawd said as he strolled over. "Draculaura mentioned that you'd be coming. You ever been to a werewolf boo-B-Q before?"

"Um, no, I can't say that I have."

Clawd watched as his nerdy normie friend began to nervously play with his eyebrow ring, a lopsided grin of amusement crossing the werewolf's face. "Well, it's nothing you need to get worked up about or anything. Just think of it as something new about the monster world for you to learn about.

"Anyway, c'mon! I'll introduce you to the rest of my family. I know you know Clawdeen, but there's going to be a lot of Wolfs around that you won't know."

* * *

One of the first things that Jackson learned was that werewolves had big families, and keeping track of all their names and faces... well, when he had a hard enough time keeping track of his _own_ names and faces, remembering all of the Wolfs was just not going to happen.

But, he tried to best. He managed to remember Howleen, but really only because she and Clawdeen kept getting into a yelling match and kept growling out each other's names. Everyone else was a blur.

The young normie soon learned what Draculaura had meant about the entire Wolf pack being a bit much to take at once, as he found himself seated at a table in between Draculaura and one of Clawd's many younger brothers, Howlmilton. Mr. Wolf and two of the other brothers brought large helpings of meat over to the table, and soon all of the werewolves were digging into the steak like a pack of hungry, wild dogs.

Mrs. Wolf, at the strong urgings from Clawd and Clawdeen, brought out a plate of salad and vegetarian hotdogs for Draculaura, who thanked her and eagerly began munching on the special food, sharing parts of it with Clawd for fun.

Somehow, Jackson managed to make it through the meal without being eaten himself (although Clawnor had almost bitten his hand, but the young pup apologized afterwards) and he found that he was actually having fun. All thoughts of his dual nature had gone out the window.

Clawd's friend Romulus came over from next door, and before Jackson really knew what was going on he found himself playing in a three-way casketball game against the two of them.

Clawd and Romulus were both almost completely bowled over in shock when they realized how good the boy actually was. Being a strapping pair of werewolves, they didn't hardly ever need to strain themselves too much to compete against anyone in a sport. So, they'd both been ready to go easy on their normie friend...

… and boy were they surprised to learn that they didn't need to.

Jackson was surprised himself when he realized that he was actually _almost_ a match for an individual werewolf, something that was generally considered to be impossible; most other monsters couldn't keep up with the famous wolf-men, and conventional humans couldn't have kept up with them no matter how hard he tried.

So, considering how easy it seemed to the young Jekyll to be able to play a decent game against not only one but _two_ werewolves, he almost _had_ to be something more than a normal human.

He couldn't be just a conventional human at all!

"Soooo..." Jackson muttered, aiming his words vaguely into the direction of Clawdeen and Draculaura; he, the girls, and Clawd and Romulus were sitting together comfortably on the front steps of the Wolfs' house, relaxing and watching as the sun began to sink low into the sky.

Clawdeen and Draculaura both turned to look at him curiously, the vampire princess silently asking him with her eyes what he was going to say.

Clawdeen wasn't so subtle. "What's on yer mind, Jackson?"

The young mad scientist stammered for a moment, trying to ask the two ghouls what was flitting around in his thoughts. "Well... I, uh... I was just... just wondering... er..."

He finally managed to blurt it out. "How is Frankie doing these days?!"

The vampire and the three werewolves all gaped at him, and then burst out laughing.

"Honestly," Clawdeen sputtering between peals of laughter. "Boys in love are the cutest thing!"

Jackson knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his entire face was beet red, and he turned quickly to gaze out at the street, wishing that he'd kept his mouth shut.

"Hey, man, we're sorry!" Romulus apologized as soon as he could keep a straight enough face to do so. "We didn't mean to make fun of you or anything."

"Yeah, we're sorry, Jackson," Draculaura piped up in her characteristic bubbly way. "Anyway, Frankie's been doing alright. I think she misses talking to you, though. You haven't spoken to her in school a good many days, you know."

"Hey, yeah! That's right! You've been snubbing her, ya dork!" Clawdeen butted in just then, almost seeming vicious. "If ya really wanna know how she's doing, then you should go ask _her_ yourself!"

Draculaura glared at her best friend, as if to warn her about how forward she was being, but she too turned to Jackson with similar words. "Clawdeen is right, Jackson. You really _should_ talk to Frankie if you're so badly interested in her."

Jackson hung his head. "I... can't."

"Hey, dude," Clawd said suddenly, putting his hand on the normie's shoulder. "Just 'cause you're flustered of embarrassed or whatever is no reason for you to completely shut your ghoul out!"

"It's not that," the normie muttered as he shook his head. "It's just... My life is too complicated at the moment to add a girlfriend to the mix... or a _ghoul_friend."

Clawd shrugged. "So? Just hang with her. You don't have to ask her out on a date or anything if you're not ready. Just, be friends with her or something."

"Yeah, Frankie's always looking for new friends!"

Jackson shrugged. "I'll think about it."

He knew they were right; he avoided her a lot here lately but was unable to get her out of his head.

He needed to either get her or get _over_ her.


	20. Chap 19: Finest Fish in this Lagoon

**Enjoy this next chapter and leave a review below. Later, folks!**

* * *

**Chapter 19: "You're The Finest Fish In This Lagoon"**

* * *

_Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and the adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde had more than a son's indifference._

_To cast in my lot with Jekyll was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless._

_The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

The very next afternoon found Jackson Jekyll all on his own during his Study Hall hour. He still hadn't spoken to Frankie, but he was certain that it wouldn't have made any difference. Every time he'd ever gotten a look at her over the past two weeks she was surrounded by all her friends.

So here he was now, sitting in Study Hall and staring blankly at one of his textbooks. He'd already studied most of these very subjects quite awhile back, so having to restudy them struck him as rather boring.

And there was nothing around him to amuse him. Only bullies giving other kids a hard time, bored teens throwing paper airplanes at one another, and girls doing their nail polish while reading pages out of their books and gossiping with their friends.

A headache was quickly beginning to develop onto his frontal lobes, and he suddenly became aware that he was not alone in his mind.

"Holt?" he muttered under his breath, trying to get words across to the other part of his split-brain. He couldn't hear an answer, though, but it almost seemed as if there was one.

If there was a response, it was covered up by all the loud squawking and cackling that the other students were doing around him... And if they kept all the noise up, he felt for certain that he would go completely insane.

He had to get out of Study Hall.

"Study _Howl_," he muttered to himself as he slipped out the door. "It's so loud in there that a guy can't hear his own other self think!"

Sighing, he began to walk down the hall, searching for a quiet place where he could just be by himself... and by his other self, too.

After a few minutes of searching, he finally found a peaceful place in the form of the school's indoor pool. No one else was around, and the waters looked pretty still and tranquil to him. What better place to do some deep thinking?

Sitting on the side of the pool and watching the water as it gently swayed against itself, lapping at the edge of the pool, Jackson removed his shoes and socks and allowed his bare feet to dangle in the water. Making sure his body was both safe and relaxed, the young Jekyll delved into the deep confines of his mind.

This time was different from last time, however; now that he was more keenly aware of its presence, he could sense something else in there with him.

"Holt?" He asked, reaching out to probe the foreign intelligence curiously. "Holt Hyde?"

A blast of confused emotions hit him square in the face as the alien entity angrily realized that it wasn't as alone as it had previously thought.

"But you're not an alien, Holt. You're a part of me."

_Confusion. Anger. Fear. Curiosity...?_

Jackson braced himself, reaching his hand out in a gesture of acceptance. "My name is Jackson, Holt. Jackson Jekyll."

A silence. Not as frustrated as before, though. It seemed calmer now, and Jackson could feel curious fingertips brush against his outstretched hands.

"I won't hurt you, Holt, I promise. Don't you want to join with me?"

_Join... with...?_

"Yeah. Join together as one person. Half of you and half of me. Together forever."

The foreign being was growing quiet and docile, its consciousness brushing tentatively against Jackson's.

It was actually a good feeling, Jackson realized. Being connected to this other portion of his mind, which had been closed to him until now, made him feel absolutely wonderful.

A sharp pain in his foot woke him from his self-induced trance, and all contact with his alter ego was lost again.

Jackson's body skidded and jumped backwards, instinctively getting as far away from the source of pain as he possibly could, accidentally knocking his backpack into the pool in the process.

The unfortunate normie glared harshly at the pink piranha that had chosen that moment to start chomping on his toes. "Was that really necessary?"

The evil fish gave him a toothy grin and vanished back under the water.

Grumbling to himself, Jackson reached into the pool and hauled out his stuff, going over everything just to make sure that he hadn't lost anything.

The last thing he needed was to lose something in the pool's infamous _Deep End_.

But, it looked like he had everything. Everything except...

"Oh no no no no... This can't be happening! Where is it? Where is my calculator?! No no no no-!"

Repeating his 'denial mantra,' Jackson stared into the water, searching to see if his beloved calculator was anywhere down there.

"Not my calculator! Not my baby!" he began to wail miserably. "That thing cost me almost a hundred dollars! _Not my calculator!_"

To his immense surprise, two thin, blue, scaly hands sprouted up from the surface of the water, holding up a notebook that he hadn't even noticed missing. "Lose something?"

He stared at the mysterious hands, wondering where they came from and who they were attached to. He finally managed to reach out and take the notebook himself, still staring at the blue appendages. "Um... Thank you?"

"Don't mention it, mate." A girl's blue face appeared from the water, long blonde hair dripping around her face. She held a hand out to him. "I'm Lagoona. Sorry if I startled you or anything, and I'm very sorry about Neptuna – she's such a prankster.

"I'm Jackson," he responded, shaking her hand politely. "Have you been here all this time?"

She smiled gently to him, trying to cover up both of their embarrassment. "Yeah, actually. I heard you talking to yourself earlier, but I sort of just figured you were having a moment and I didn't really want to humiliate us both by popping up or anything."

She changed the subject quickly. "So, did you lose anything else?"

"Yeah... my calculator."

Nodding, the water creature dove back down into pool, vanishing from sight. She popped back up in a few minutes, holding the prized calculator out to him. "Is this what all the fuss is about?"

"Yes! Thank you so much! You have no idea!" Jackson practically squealed, hugging the little mathematical device to his chest. "I thought I'd never see my baby again!"

A surge of happy excitement blasted through him, and his whole body began to tingle, his eyesight being overtaken with the color red for a moment.

When he could see clearly again, he saw that Lagoona was looking at him in confusion, her head tilted a little to one side and her eyebrows cocked just so. She was looking him up and down, but saying nothing, seemingly waiting for an explanation.

He looked down at himself in confusion, wondering what it was she was looking at, and realizing that his body was no longer that of Jackson Jekyll.

His skin had turned blue, and his clothing had changed, taking on a flashier style and brighter colors. He had to lean over the pool to see what his face now looked like, though, and what he saw made him cry out in shock.

His hair was on fire. So he was part fire-elemental after all.

He had no control as strange words flew out of his mouth, his voice not sounding quite right. "Yo! So where am I and what am I doing?"

Lagoona shrugged. "I'm going to gather that you're not Jackson, though."

"Yes, no, dunno."

Holt began to talk, his jaw easily unhinging and just letting all manner of words fly out of his mouth. Lagoona just listened and nodded as he spoke, having heard enough rumors to understand the basics of who Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde had been and having a vague concept of what Holt was talking about.

"It's just so weird, y'know?" Holt finally said. "It's like... I'm two people that live in the same body. Or maybe I'm just one person with two faces. I dunno what I am, and most days I ain't even sure what my name is or what I look like."

"I can see where that might get under your skin," Lagoona told him. "And while our situations are not exactly the same, I do have an idea of where you're coming from; my father is a sea monster, but my mother is an ocean nymph. So, I sort of have two different worlds to live in, and it can sure be complicated at times."

She smiled at him. "But, no matter what, I'm still true to myself. I don't confine myself to either my father's world or my mother's world, or even just both of them. I'm me, and nothing can ever change that."

"But what if ya don't even know who you are?" Holt asked her, his voice quieter than usual. "What do ya do then?"

"You'll figure it out," she told him. "You just need to stay true to both of yourselves and you need to get both of yer lives back on track. But don't worry, mate – stormy seas don't last forever."

Holt nodded as though he agreed with her, but Jackson heard his thoughts loud and clear. _'But, the storm could still make your ship go under.'_


	21. Chap 20: You So Beguile

**Been working hard on this story, so here's some chapters for you patient peoples! Enjoy!**

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Chapter 20: "You So Beguile, Even Though You Act So Vile"

_Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded by friends and cherished honest hopes; and bade a resolute farewell to the liberty, the comparative youth, the light step, leaping enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde. I made this choice perhaps with some unconscious reservation, for I neither gave up the house in Soho, nor destroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde, which still lay ready in my cabinet. For two months, however, I was true to my determination; for two months, I led a life of such severity as I had never before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations of an approving conscience._

_But time began at last to obliterate the freshness of my alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow into a thing of course; I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

"You want me to do what?!" Chad exclaimed, staring at Cleo de Nile and Lilith von Hellscream in total bewilderment.

It had been a few days since Jackson had spoken with Lagoona and had encountered his alter ago for the first time, and now he sat with Chad and Clair at their usual lunch table. He felt a little uncomfortable sitting somewhere where he wasn't surrounded on all sides by monsters, but he was slowly warming up to some of the other humans.

Chad had been in the middle of telling one of his lame jokes and Clair and Jackson were in the middle of fake laughing when they'd been interrupted the sudden arrival of the two rival queens of New Salem High.

Cleo de Nile was the queen among the monster students, and Lilith was the queen among the human students. When either of the two fashionistas said 'jump,' at least half of the student population of the school would ask 'how high?'

They had quickly explained that they had been put in charge of organizing the upcoming school dance, and that they were currently looking for someone to coordinate and run the music.

"We want you to be the DJ, Chad," Lilith patiently answered his outcry. "I've been to a few of your parties, and you do seem to have the uncanny ability of getting people on the dance floor.

"Besides," she added with a smirk directed at the mummy girl next to her. "Cleo wanted some monster DJ she's only met once before and she can't seem to locate him again."

Cleo sneered at her. "Look, it's not my fault that I can't get in touch with Holt Hyde! He's probably some super busy college student or something! There's no way someone as cool as he is could possibly attend our school!"

"And apparently he doesn't exist, either," Lilith fired back, rolling her eyes.

Jackson bit his lower lip and stared intently at his plate, suddenly finding the mystery meat to be very interesting; it was just so awkward to hear other people talk about his alter ego in front of him, even when they didn't know that he and Holt were one and the same.

Both girls glared at each other, and only stopped when Clair called for their attention.

"Look, if you're going to argue, why don't you go take it somewhere else. Chad needs complete silence before any piece of information really sinks in."

Lilith sighed. "Look, Chad, we just need you to put together a selection of music to play at the dance, and then you need to show up to figure out what sort of equipment that you want to use, and then you come to dance and play the music. It's a simple job."

Chad nodded eagerly. "I think I can handle that."

The two girls scribbled some things down on their clipboards and promptly flounced off, still bickering between themselves.

"Makes you wonder how they ended up working on this thing together," Clair muttered. Beside her, Jackson nodded in agreement.

Chad, meanwhile, was busy happy-punching the air above him, which caused several other students to look over at him a little funny.

"I've got a DJ-ing job!" Chad cried out happily. "I am so, totally, stoked! Oh, man! This has got to be the best day ever! Like, of my entire life!"

Clair chuckled and exchanged looks with Jackson. "He's so cute when he's excited."

"Okay, Chad, calm down," the kooky boy was saying to himself. "Relax. Relax. Try to think for a minute... Hey, what kind of music do you play at a dance, anyway?"

"Chad, if you play nothing but that stupid, happy, preppy, sunshine-y stuff that you listen to, I will never talk to you again!" his goth gal pal told him.

"But I can't play all that dark and emo trash that you listen to, Clair! You know that stuff isn't allowed in school!"

Jackson frowned, cutting in before they started alternating too loudly. "Look, why don't you play a little of everything? I mean, everyone in school has different tastes anyway. Just play a variety."

Chad nodded, then looked at the two of them beseechingly. "Will you guys help me? I mean, you two are better with cool music and that sort of stuff. I mean, I still think the Beatles are 'in' and that 'Johnny Be Good' songs are awesome!"

Clair rolled her eyes. "So not true."

"There, you see! I need your help, guys!" Chad gave his friends puppy-dog eyes, sticking his lower lip out in a pout. "Pretty please?"

Jackson chuckled under his breath while Clair rolled her eyes.

"Seriously, Chad, I'm going to just kill you one of these days," she muttered, glaring at him.

"Please?"

"Fine, I'll help you! But only if you stop being such a dorky baby!"

Chad snickered before turning back to the other boy. "What about you, Jackson? You'll help me, right?"

Jackson stared at Chad, opening and closing his mouth a few times without saying any words. He was a little worried about how his very few human friends would respond, should the music cause his Hyde side to come out.

But, Chad and Clair were looking at him funny, wondering what his problem was.

This was something he couldn't talk his way out of, no matter how hard he tried; he racked his brains, trying to figure out what he could say to ensure that he wouldn't be expected to help.

"Okay," he finally managed. "I guess I can help you-"

He was actually cut off by Chad's coming around to his side of the table and hugging him.

"Thanks, Jackson!" Chad was saying. Loudly. In Jackson's ear. "You're a life-saver!"

"Eh... no problem, Chad."

He smiled brightly at his friend, assuring him that Jackson would help him and it would be totally fun.

But, for the rest of the day, Jackson couldn't escape the feeling of being trapped in a cage, as if he were just waiting for the Trick or Treatment to slam down over his neck.

This couldn't possibly end well.

* * *

**Have I ever mentioned how much I love Clair and Chad? Because I really, really do...**


	22. Chap 21: Stone Cold Style

Chapter 21: "Stone Cold Style"

_I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon his vice, his is once out of five hundred time affected by the dangers that he runs though his brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I had considered my position, made enough allowance for the complete moral insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the leading characters of Edward Hyde. Yet it was by these I was punished. My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. I was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled, a more furious propensity to ill. It must have been this, I suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest of impatience with which I listened to the civilities of my unhappy victim; I declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick child may break a plaything. But I had voluntarily stripped myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of us continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among temptations; and in my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was to fall._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

"Whoa, dude! Chill out!" Deuce called as Jackson angrily threw the casketball at the hoop.

The ball hit with such force that it ricocheted right back off the rim, slamming back down to the ground and bouncing a few times. Deuce caught it, wincing ever so slightly as the ball hit his chest.

Jackson sighed and tried as hard as he could to bring his mind into the real world and relax. "Sorry. I have a lot on my mind these days."

"No kiddin,'" the gorgon replied. He tossed the ball back to Jackson, who caught it with ease, and delivered a few short orders. "Dribble. Talk. Now."

Nodding, Jackson began to dribble the ball, watching as it went up and down between his hands and the Gorgons' driveway; it was strangely soothing. "Well, it's kind of a weird problem..."

Deuce actually snickered. "I didn't exactly expect anything easy out of you, dude. Man, stop worrying about what I'm gonna think, okay? Now dish."

Jackson nodded again absentmindedly, still making the ball go up and down. "Um... well... My father... He had a mental disorder. Like, he was generally human, but sometimes... He would turn into a monster called Hyde."

"'Hyde,'" his snake-like friend asked, his eyebrows cocked and funny angles. "You mean like the kid who's been driving Cleo insane because she can't locate him no matter what she does for the past, like, week?"

"Uh-huh," Jackson paused his his dribbling, tilting his head to look at Deuce. "Yeah, just like him. In fact... I'm learning here recently just how much of my father's monster side I've inherited."

Deuce stared at him for probably about two minutes, not getting it. Finally, his eyes widened and his brows both shot up so high they could have been swallowed up by the scales on his head. His snakes all swiveled around, staring at Jackson with equally wide eyes.

"You can't mean..." he finally stammered.

Jackson gave him a dry look. "I'm afraid you are currently looking at Holt Hyde's day job."

For a minute, he thought that Deuce was going to faint, but he managed to remain standing somehow.

"That's... um... well, that's... Yeah..."

Jackson frowned and sat down on the steps. "My life is such a mess. Not that my life has ever been particularly easy to begin with, but now it's even worse. I can't even look in a mirror without wondering if I'm seeing the right face or not, and now Chad wants my help with the music stuff for the school dance, and I'm afraid that I'll turn into Holt the minute I hear the first chord!"

Deuce opened his mouth as if to make a suggestion, but Jackson quickly silenced him.

"And don't tell me to just be myself!" the human said, his voice a little louder than normal and a slight sneer to his lips. "Because I am sick and tired of hearing that answer! People keep telling me that, but do you know how I got into this mess in the first place? By being my self!"

Deuce frowned and shrugged. "I'm... sorry?"

The human fell silent for a moment, then looked away. "Sorry, Deuce. I shouldn't be getting so mad at you just because I can't get control over my own body."

He lay his head down on his knees tiredly. "I'm just so worried about how everyone would react if they saw me transform into Holt Hyde."

Even though Deuce was clearly still digesting and processing all this information in his mind, he was still listening, paying attention to every word that Jackson spoke. He cocked his head and his normie pal, clearly puzzled. "So, you're afraid that those normie kids, Chad and Clair, won't like you anymore just because you're part monster? Is that what you're saying?"

He paused almost disapprovingly. "Are those friends or yours really so shallow that they won't accept you as you are?"

Jackson, shrugged. He didn't really know, and he was terrified of finding out.

Deuce sighed before reaching down and pulling Jackson to his feet. "Tell you what, dude. Why don't we run some experiments to see what it is that makes you transform? That way, once you know what causes the trigger, you'll know what to avoid."

Agreeing to this mostly to please his friend, Jackson followed him into the house, taking a second to marvel at how much the Gorgons' home resembled the Parthenon of Greece, and he soon found himself sitting on the end of Deuce bed in the gorgon's bedroom. Perseus, Deuce's pet rat, scampered up and down Jackson's legs, squeaking at him in excitement.

"So, you were thinking that maybe it was music that makes you change, right?" Deuce asked, rifling through his closet.

Jackson nodded, wondering what his friend was up to.

He didn't have to wonder for very long, because soon Deuce reemerged, carrying a rather large stack of cassette tapes, ranging from almost every kind of human and monster form of music imaginable that had been played over the last century.

"Okay, so you officially have a cassette fetish," Jackson remarked, eying the sizable stash. "Kind of a strange obsession, but I guess I've seen worse."

Deuce chuckled. "You think this is a lot? You should see my eight-track collection!"

The young Jekyll blinked in confusion, not even knowing what an 'eight-track' was. He quickly shook his head and offered Deuce a small smile. "Well, let's get jamming then!"

(**Line Break, which I'm trusting is here even though it's not showing up on my side)**

* * *

"Okay..." Deuce looked over his list a few hours later. "So, you transformed during Ripped Rattler, Casper and the Haunters, Screaming Mimi, the Groovy Ghoulies, Elvis Deadly, and Ghostly Buster, but not during Pink Floyd, White Lion, the Who, U2, Blink182, the Cars, or the Monkees."

Jackson turned to look at his friend, but was too tired to make any coherent responses; his body had been changing back and forth between Jackson Jekyll and Holt Hyde at such frequent intervals over the past few hours that he was completely drained. Even Holt had been exhausted during the last few songs, and they had both been driven to simply lying on the messy gorgon's bed like a dead person.

Deuce tilted an eyebrow. "There seems to be some sort of a connection."

"Yeah? What?"

"I think it's only monster music that's key in making you change, 'cause human music seems to have little or no effect on you at all... well..." He grinned. "Other than making you totally rock the house, dude."

Jackson smirked at his friend for a minute, then turned away tiredly. "Well, I guess I'll be okay, then. I mean, since Chad's a human, he's not going to play much in the way of monster music, is he?"

"Yeah, he probably doesn't know much about monster tunes, so, yeah, you're safe there." Deuce's face became serious, though. "But I still think you need to tell Chad and Clair and everyone else about your secret before anyone finds out by mistake. I mean, what if Spectra finds out and slaps the whole story of your double-life all over her Ghostly Gossip thing? Major bummer, man!"

"I don't think Spectra would do that," Jackson muttered. "But I guess you're right. I just... This is the first time in my life I've ever really had actual friends, human or monster, and I really don't want to screw anything up."

"You told me, didn't you?"

"But only because you made me!" the nerdy normie accused. "Besides, I trust you."

"Don't you trust any of your other friends? I mean, Chad and Clair are your friends... aren't they?"

Jackson fell silent, knowing that Deuce had a valid point but not wishing to admit it.

Deuce shook his head. "Dude, I know your life is suddenly, like, majorly complicated, but you've got to get everything straightened out."

"I know... I will."

Deuce was quiet for a minute, watching while the worn out Jackson tried to sit up, but then he flopped down on the bed and threw his arm around Jackson's shoulders, wholly supporting his friend.

"I'll help you sort out your life, dude. If you want, anyhoo."

Jackson blinked owlishly up at him in surprise. "Really?!"

"Yeah. What are friends for?"

It sounded so simple coming from Deuce's mouth, and it made Jackson smile and shake his head in wonder. "Up until this point, I really had no idea."

* * *

**I also really love the interactions between Deuce and Jackson. These two are bros for life, man. Bros for life.**


	23. Chap 22: My Boos, My Skeleton Crew

Chapter 22: "My Boos, My Skeleton Crew"

_Instantly the spirit of Hell awoke in me and raged. With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow; and it was not till weariness had begun to succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my delirium, struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror. A mist dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit; and fled from the scene of these excesses, at once glorying and trembling, my lust of evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the topmost peg._

_I ran to the house in Soho, and (to make assurance double sure) destroyed my papers; thence I set out through the lamplit streets, in the same divided ecstasy of mind, gloating on my crime, light-headedly devising others in the future, and yet still hastening and still hearkening in my wake for the steps of the avenger._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

Jackson sat down at a lunch table on the monster side of the cafeteria a few days later, gazing down with some interest at the lunch tray that he'd put together with some help from his manster friends.

Deuce had told him that he had a special place in the monster world, so he figured, if he was going to be a part of both worlds of humans and monsters, then he'd better start acting like he belonged. This process apparently started with lunch.

Deuce, Clawd, and Heath had all started giving him suggestions for different monster foods that he could try. He already ate a lot of the basics that were also considered safe for human consumption, but he was unfamiliar with some of the more... freaky ones.

And, upon hearing that their normie friend was willing to try some new foods, other monsters had come and sat at the table, eager to make other suggestions to see his reactions to their dishes.

"Uummm..." Jackson began awkwardly. He turned to look at Clawd a little helplessly. "There are legs sticking out of this hamburger."

"It's actually a frogburger," the werewolf told him, shoving about three burgers of his own into his mouth at once. "Don't worry about it, though – the frog's already dead and been cooked. Just put a little ketchup on it and take a bite."

"I still think you should at least try the chilled monkey brains," Invisibilly muttered, fading in and out in his seat at the other end of the table. "A little salt, a little chocolate sauce, and even a little soy sauce and them things are delicious!"

Jackson chose to ignore his whacky invisible friend and bravely took a big bite out of the frogburger. He'd eaten frog's legs before, so how different could it really be?

He tried fresh eel cakes at Gil Webber's suggestion, Eye Drop Soup when Bram and Gory told him it was to die for, Octopus Surprise at Scarah Screams' suggestion, and even Slow-Moe's sugar eyeball treats. Gory also brought him a slice of kidney pie that was dripping in blood, which he adored and devoured quickly enough to rival a starving werewolf or vampire.

A walking voodoo doll named Hoodude came over and began to sit by Scarah, and was surprised when the seat threw him back off.

"Hey!" Invisibilly yelled, materializing in his seat beside Scarah again. "I'm sitting here, man!"

"Sorry! I didn't see you there!"

Jackson found this to be very amusing, but didn't get a chance to comment about it; he was interrupted by Gory's sudden outcry.

"My lunch is getting away!" she squealed, pointing to a cockroach that skittered across the table. She began trying to stab it cockroach with her fork, but she couldn't seem to move fast enough, even with her vampire super-speed.

Jackson watched with interest as, on each side of him, Deuce and Heath began stabbing at the runaway critter as well, often missing. The beetle skittered across the table, being hotly pursued by many forks, knives, hands, and even Whodude's voodoo pins.

Slow-Moe missed it by a mile, of course, and even the born hunters Clawd, Bram, and Gory couldn't seem to catch it no matter how hard they tried. Invisibilly and Scarah began working together, trying very hard to devise a plan to snag the little pest, but even forceful thoughts, banshee wails, and turning invisible and sneaking up on it did them no good.

Now, a command shot through Jackson's mind. He didn't know where the command had come from, although he assumed that it was probably Holt, but he obeyed all the same. His hand shot forward and came down over top of the cockroach, trapping it effectively.

_Thanks, Holt,_ he thought quietly to himself. He was rewarded with the faint impression of blue lips and a smug smile.

He handed the beetle over to Gory, who smiled broadly at him as she took the insect from his fingertips.

"Thank you so very much for your help, Jackson!" She hissed at him kindly, grasping the roach firmly and biting its head clean off. "You're such a gentleman!"

Bram cast him a well-meaning smirk. "Why don't Gory and I thank you later by turning you into a vampire? You know you'd enjoy it, Jekyll."

Even though the idea was very much tantalizing, Jackson shook his head. "No thank you, Bram, Gory. I have enough … complications … in my life without the added bonus of becoming an entirely different form of creature overnight."

His vampire friends both shrugged. They really had just been teasing him and neither one would change him for the world unless he'd asked them to. He was probably their favorite human, so if he didn't want it, they wouldn't press him.

Jackson gazed down at his plate, unwittingly meeting the gaze of the eyeballs that peppered his salad. It was a little strange to be eating something that insisted on staring up at you, but he figured he could cope.

It dawned on him just how lucky he really was. Here he was, sitting happily and peacefully sharing lunch with a gorgon, a werewolf, an invisible boy, a voodoo doll, a zombie, a banshee, a sea monster, a fire-elemental, and two extremely bloodthirsty vampires. How many other humans could claim that they sat at the same lunch table as so many different monsters? Especially when some of those monsters could easily eat a human for breakfast and they probably had just that morning?

This thought should have disturbed him in some way, but instead it just made him feel fortunate that he could have friends in both worlds, human and monster, and that both worlds seemed to accept him.

He glanced up casually, meeting gazes with Deuce beside him. Deuce smiled at him, as if reading his mind.

Jackson inhaled deeply, bolstering his courage before turning back to the gorgon. "I think I'm ready to go tell them now."

* * *

**I wrote this while watching an Indiana Jones movie. I don't remember which one, but there's this scene where Indy is eating dinner with this rich guy somewhere between India and the Middle East and they're eating chilled monkey brains and beetles and live eel and fried snake... Somehow, it made me think of MH's creepeteria?**


	24. Chap 23: A Little Strange

Chapter 23: "A Little Strange, But So Are You"

_Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the draught, and as he drank it, pledged the dead man. The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God._

_The veil of self-indulgence was rent from head to foot. I saw my life as a whole: I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had walked with my father's hand, and through the self-denying toils of my professional life, to arrive again and again, with the same sense of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening. I could have screamed aloud; I sought with tears and prayers to smother down the crowd of hideous images and sounds with which my memory swarmed against me; and still, between the petitions, the ugly face of iniquity stared into my soul._

_As the acuteness of this remorse began to die away, it was succeeded by the sense of joy. The problem of my conduct was solved. Hyde was thenceforth impossible; whether I would or not, I was now confined to the better part of my existence; and O, how I rejoiced to think of it! With what willing humility I embraced anew the restrictions of natural life! With what sincere renunciation I locked the door by which I had so often gone and come, and ground the key under my heel!_

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

Climbing to his feet and picking up his tray, Jackson crossed the cafeteria floor, walking towards the table where he could see Chad and Clair discussing something with each other, pulling CDs out of their backpacks and waving them in each other's faces.

"Oh, c'mon, Chad!" Clair cried out, almost hitting her friend in the face with her CD. "'Darkest Nite' is totally the way to go!"

"But, Clair, 'Darkest Nite' does long, loud songs filled with cuss words and most of what they talk about is the so-called 'thrill' of dying or dumping their boy/girlfriends!"

She glared at him in slight confusion. "What's your point?"

"It's inappropriate!"

"What's inappropriate?" Jackson asked as he approached them.

Clair immediately turned to him, clearly hoping to get someone on her side. "Hey, Jackson. 'Darkest Nite' isn't inappropriate, is it?"

Jackson shrugged casually. "Among humans it is, among monsters it isn't. I mean, they're rude and very dark, and they use very strong language, so... most humans would see a problem with them, but most monsters would view the band as being completely child-friendly and have no issue."

He glanced down at the stacks of CDs. "I'm not sure if you have much here that could be played at our school dance without offended somebody."

"I know," Chad muttered, putting his head down on the table. "But I don't really have much to work with."

Clair snorted under her breath. "Chad doesn't even know what was popular after the 1970's... let alone what's popular now."

"Oh, shut up!" Chad let out in a shocking display of anger. It made Jackson jump back, since he'd never seen the other boy get angry before, but it only made Clair smirk in amusement.

Shrugging in dismissal, Jackson sat down at the table, sinking his fork back into a green leaf of his eyeball salad. "Hey, guys? I need to talk to you about something..."

Looking back up, he realized that both Chad and Clair were staring at his lunch tray with matching faces, both looking rather nauseous.

"Does it have to do with why your salad is glaring at me?" Chad ventured to ask.

The Jekyll laughed a little, but shook his head. "No, that's not what I wanted to talk about. And, uh, just ignore the salad, guys. Your staring is only encouraging it."

Clair's eyes were still trained on his lunch tray. "Is that blood on your plate?!"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah. From the Kidney Pie, I suppose."

Jackson was interrupted once again, this time by the sudden appearance of Ghoulia Yelps, personal lackey to her royal highness, Cleo de Nile.

Ghoulia slammed a schedule down in front of Chad, moaning at him about something or other in Zombie. She paused afterwards, staring at him as though waiting for an answer to a question.

Chad gaped up at the zombie girl, his jaw a little slack. "I'm sorry, but what the huh?!"

Ghoulia rolled her eyes and sighed, clearly wishing that she had brought her electronic translating device with her.

To everyone's surprise, the awkward silence was broken by Jackson, who was absentmindedly chewing on a retina. "She said that this is the schedule for the upcoming dance, including the dates that you need to be ready by, and that Cleo would like to know what kind of equipment you think you'll be needing."

He looked up to see that Chad, Clair, and Ghoulia were all staring at him with wide eyes. "What? I speak many languages, including Zombie. Answer the question, Chad, don't leave the poor girl waiting all day!"

"Oh! Right! Uh..." Chad fished around in his backpack, pulling out a piece of paper and a pencil and writing a list of different electronic gadgets. "I think I'm probably going to use all of these, so..."

Nodding, Ghoulia accepted the list from him and ambled off, heading back to the table where Cleo was sitting. Jackson couldn't help but notice that Frankie was sitting with Cleo too, and it made him bite his lip.

That was another thing to be sorted out at a later date. Right now, he needed to focus on this step in the process.

He turned back to his table mates, meeting the confused gazes of his human friends.

He sighed. "I'm actually the only human in my family, so... I guess I've just grown up more used to monsters than other humans? And, to be completely honest, I'm not even really human."

Clair was the first to recover, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him. "Explain."

"Well... It's kind of a long story, but I'll do my best. You see, my father... he had some interesting ideas..."

It took the entire rest of the afternoon to explain his predicament to his friends, but it felt kind of good to get it off his chest. He even pulled his father's diary out of his messenger bag a few times, showing certain pages to his friends in an attempt to explain himself.

"Okay, so let me get this straight..." Chad said as the final bell rang, signifying the end of school. "Your dad made a potion to turn himself into a monster, he went back and forth between human and monster for a quite awhile, and then he, er..."

"Died," Clair said helpfully.

"Yeah, um, passed on. So now you've inherited your dad's monster side? Is that right?"

Jackson nodded and shrugged at the same time. "Pretty close. My other self just made himself known recently, and my friend Deuce told me that I should probably tell you before you find out by mistake or anything."

He gave them a sidelong look, a smile tugging on his lips. "And that's probably good, because I think Holt could give both of you quite a start if you met him in a dark alley."

"So, what? Do you transform into a big, green version of yourself when you get angry or something?"

Chad's question caused the spontaneous sound of laughter to fill Jackson's head, letting him know that Holt was awake and listening, too.

"Um, no, I'm not exactly the Incredible Hulk or anything. But, yeah, I do have a particular trigger." Just the thought of his special trigger made Jackson's mind bounce back to the topic that his friends had been discussing when he'd first approached them earlier that day. "Oh, and that reminds me of your music ordeal."

Chad threw his hands in the air in complete exasperation. "How on earth does talking about your split personality bring to mind the concept of music?!"

Ignoring his friend's outburst, Jackson continued on. "Have you considered playing monster music at the party?"

This caused the others to pause and think about it; clearly they hadn't considered that option at all.

Clair sighed. "Well, we don't exactly know much about monster music, but, since you seem to be a regular encyclopedia of the undead, maybe you should help us out."

"Me?!" This was not a part of the plan. Not at all a part of the plan.

"Well, why not you?" Chad asked.

Jackson fell completely silent, deep in thought. So many conflicting thoughts were going through his head, some his own and some Holt's. And others, he didn't even know where they were coming from.

But, in the end, he found that he couldn't say 'no,' no matter how hard he tried.


	25. Chap 24: But So Are You

**Another day, and another installment. Enjoy!**

_Chapter 24:_

_The next day, came the news that the murder had not been overlooked, that the guilt of Hyde was patent to the world, and that the victim was a man high in public estimation. It was not only a crime, it had been a tragic folly. I think I was glad to know it; I think I was glad to have my better impulses thus buttressed and guarded by the terrors of the scaffold. Jekyll was now my city of refuge; let but Hyde peep out an instant, and the hands of all men would be raised to take and slay him._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

It had been almost three weeks since he'd last actually spoken to Frankie, and Jackson knew that it was time he approached her again. Or, more accurately, Deuce knew that it was time and was eagerly pushing Jackson into it.

Jackson could tell that Holt was interested too; he had yet to meet Frankie and wanted to see what it was that the Jekyll had his Bunsen burner in a bunch over.

And so, here Jackson stood, his locker open in front of him and sneaking glances down the hall, where Frankie was standing in a little cluster of her ghoulfriends. Biting his lip, the nerdy normie turned back to stare at the inside of his locker.

"Well?" Deuce asked from not two feet away. "Are you going or what?"

"Um, maybe not now, I mean... she's kind of busy..."

Deuce's head moved in such a way that made Jackson believe the gorgon was rolling his eyes behind those sunglasses. "Dude, just... GO!"

At the last word from his very short sentence, the gorgon had put his hands forward and shoved, sending Jackson practically flying in the general direction of the group of ghouls.

Jackson regained his footing and shot a glare back at Deuce, who merely smirked at him and walked away. Turning back around, the young Jekyll found that Frankie was turned just right and had noticed him.

His mouth suddenly went dry.

A part of him began to focus on his very dry mouth, realizing that, if he tried speaking now, the only sounds he would be able to make would be a variety of wheezes and moans, so was this what a zombie's mouth felt like? Did they not have salivary glands, perhaps, and that was why they only spoke with a series of moans?

Scrambling back to his feet and clearing his throat, Jackson approached the monster girls, recognizing a few of them and greeting them. "Hi, Draculaura, Clawdeen, Lagoona, Ghoulia, Cleo. Um, Frankie? Could I speak with you for a minute?"

The young Frankenstein nodded quietly and followed him away from the other girls, many of whom were calling after her encouragingly.

The two teenagers slipped into the empty pool room, which was the only place where they could get any privacy in the entire school. They both sat on the unoccupied bleachers, sitting in an awkward silence for a few minutes.

"Um..." Jackson began. "I've been meaning to talk to you..."

Frankie looked at him, saying nothing. She looked more scared than anything, probably assuming that he was going to say something to her that would hurt her feelings.

"I know I've been avoiding you lately, Frankie, but... I just really didn't think you needed to be a part of my life. Wait, that came out wrong."

He shook his head, trying to find a better way to explain that might not end with her getting the wrong idea. "My father, he was a normie who could change into a monster. And here a couple months ago, it became more or less apparent just how much like my father I really am.

"You see, I have this... problem. Under certain circumstances, I lose all control over my body and I turn into... another person. Only this one is a monster. And boy howdy is he a popular monster!"

Frankie was staring at him in confusion. "I'm not sure I understand."

"I'm not sure _I_ do either. But, the basics of it is that I'm not one boy, I'm _two_. So, anyone who spends a lot of time with me also has to spend a decent amount of time with the _other me_ as well." He gave her a wan look. "That's why I didn't want to spend too much time with you, Frankie. I didn't want to get you involved in this mess that my life has become recently."

He shrugged. "But, now that three of my other friends know, I kind of figured that you at least deserved to know why I wasn't talking to you. And, I'm really sorry if I hurt your feelings or anything, and I'll understand if you don't ever want to see me again."

"I guess I can forgive you," Frankie began. "But, it really did hurt that you were ignoring me. I assumed that I'd done something wrong and you didn't want to spend any time with me anymore."

"That's not even close to the truth, Frankie!" the Jekyll exclaimed, horrified. "I wanted to talk to you more than anyone else, but …. I was afraid. I had to sort my own self out first before getting too involved with anyone else."

The Frankenstein girl beside him grabbed his hand suddenly, shocking both of them. "Draculaura and Clawdeen told me that you kept asking them about me, and that they were certain that you liked me. Um, and Clawdeen said that she thought you had a crush on me."

Jackson blushed lightly, giving her green hand a small squeeze. "Well, um... yeah, I uh, I really do like you, Frankie. Like, _a lot_. But, given the mess that my life has turned into, I don't think it would be right for me to ask you out on a date. Not yet, anyway."

It occurred to him that Frankie looked kind of cute when she was embarrassed. Her green cheeks took on a pinkish haze that overlapped the stitches on her face, and the bolts in her neck began to spark and emit all forms of electricity.

"Well, that's okay," she finally said. "We can just be friends for now. So long as we can actually talk and stuff, I don't mind. I'm not even quite ready for a boyfriend anyway."

"That's a relief. I was afraid you'd be mad at me and electrocute me on the spot!"

The two sat in silence for a second, holding hands and saying nothing. It was nice to just sit still, now that they both knew where they stood.

Friends. Very, very good friends. Maybe more than friends, someday.

"What's the other side of you like?" Frankie asked shortly, her green and blue eyes both filled with curiosity.

"Well, actually, Frankie, you've already met him. I believe you met him at Cleo big party awhile back."

"Really?"

"Yeah. In fact, you seemed really interested in him the next day, when you were talking about how cool he was and showing me his picture on your iCoffin."

She blinked at him a few times before understanding what he was talking about. "Well, I know I showed you a couple pictures that I took of Holt Hyde, but..."

A grin showing on his features, Jackson released her hand just long enough to remove the pair of headphones from around his neck, slipping them on over his ears. He had created a long playlist of monster music earlier that morning, so all he had to do was turn it to 'play.'

Frankie stared at him in amazement as he began to change; the now familiar waves of heat and flames rippled over his body, igniting him and changing him into something else entirely. Pink skin gave way to blue, blue eyes gave way to yellow, black hair gave way to fiery red, and his clothing also twisted and reshaped itself into an entirely different form.

Within a matter of nanoseconds, Holt Hyde was sitting beside Frankie, right in the seat where Jackson Jekyll had been before.

"Do you believe me now, pretty ghoul?" Holt asked, his yellow eyes fixed on Frankie and his head cocked to one side. A lazy smile spread across his face, and he took her hand again.

In a slight daze, the ghoul nodded, her fingers unconsciously winding themselves around his own.

They were interrupted by a loud ringing of the school bell, and Holt cast Frankie a smile.

"Hey, sounds like school's out for the day. How about you and I and Jackson go catch a movie or somethin?'"

She cocked an eyebrow, smiling at him shyly. "Are you asking me out on a date?"

"Nope! There ain't no law sayin' that two friends can't go see a movie, is there? We're just... cementing our friendship is all! So whattya say, Frankie-fine?"

After a moment's hesitation, Frankie nodded shyly, allowing him to pull her up and lead her out of the school through the fire escape on the side of the building.

Something told her that this was going to be the start of a very complicated, confusing, and very interesting friendship.


	26. Chap 25: Don't Ya Wanna be a Monster too

Chapter 25: "Don't You Want To Be A Monster, Too?"

_I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good. You know yourself how earnestly, in the last months of the last year, I labored to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for others, and that the days passed quietly, almost happily for myself. Nor can I truly say that I wearied of this beneficent and innocent life; I think instead that I daily enjoyed it more completely; but I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for license. Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; the bare idea of that would startle me to frenzy: no, it was in my own person that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience; and it was as on ordinary secret sinner that I at last tell before the assaults of temptation._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

"What's taking so long?!" Chad whined, standing beside Clair on the Jekyll's front porch.

"Chad, I only just knocked, like, half a second ago. What's your deal?"

Her friend shuddered as he looked up at the house next door. "It's that castle. It's seriously creeping me out! Oh, why won't someone open the door already?!"

Clair rolled her eyes, but knocked again for good measure; she wasn't exactly the biggest fan of the Transylvanian estate next door either.

Jackson had asked them to come over to his place that afternoon, saying that he could introduce them to some of the tamer musicians of the monster world. Thus, here they were, standing on the front porch of the address that Jackson had given them.

In fact, one of his directions to his home was that he lived in the house 'right next door to the creepy castle.'

The front door opened finally, revealing a woman that couldn't be anything but a fire-elemental. She was built not unlike a pixie, and had the telltale yellow skin, fiery red hair and eyes to match, a thin face, and long, pointy ears.

Chad blinked at the woman in slight confusion before he began to look around wildly. "Are we at the right house?!"

The woman smiled slightly. "Well, if you're friends of Jackson's, you're at the right place. I'm Sydney Jekyll, Jackson's mother."

"I'm Clair," the goth smiled, offering her hand to shake with the adult woman. "My weirdo friend here is Chad."

"Hi."

Sydney smiled at the kids, being more amused than offended by Chad's behavior. Besides, it wasn't often that Jackson had friends come to visit him – so far it had just been Heath, Deuce, Clawd, Draculaura and Frankie – so it was nice to see that he had some human friends as well.

Standing away from the door, she gestured for the teens to enter the house. "You can come in, I don't bite. Jackson told me that some friends of his would be coming over; he's up in his room with Frankie."

'I hope we're not interrupting anything,' Clair couldn't help but think to herself upon hearing that Jackson had Frankie in his bedroom. It was the kind of thing that elicited suggestive thoughts.

Both human teens couldn't help but gaze around the house with interest, noting how everything seemed to have a fire theme. Everything was done in fire tones, such as red, orange, yellow, scarlet, and the like, and many items had a flame pattern printed on them.

Going up the stairs and reaching the door that Mrs. Jekyll had referred to, Clair knocked tentatively on the door, not wanting to just barge in or anything. The door opened soon, revealing Jackson with a chameleon perched on his shoulder.

"Hey, guys," he greeted them, waving them in. "We were just working on our homework while we waited for you."

Clair stared at him. "When you say 'we,' please tell me you're not referring to the lizard there."

He blinked at her in confusion for a minute before turning and looking at the chameleon. "Huh? Oh, no, this is my pet Crossfade. I was talking about Frankie."

The young Frankenstein could be seen sitting cross-legged on his bed, several textbooks opened in front of her. "Hi!"

Following behind his gothic gal pal, Chad stared around at the strange bedroom with wide, fascinated eyes. The room looked to be done in Early Dante's Inferno or something. "I didn't die and go to the bad place, did I?"

This caused Jackson to laugh slightly, but he otherwise ignored the question in favor of selecting a stack of CD's off a dresser. "Okay, so Frankie and I have put together some stuff that you might consider using at the dance. Some of these are ours and some we borrowed from other friends."

Taking the chameleon from Jackson's shoulder, Frankie moved to sit closer to the head of the bed, leaving plenty of room for anyone that wanted to come join her. "What are you going to play for them first, Jackson?"

"I thought I'd start off with some of that Green Night Slime stuff that Holt likes so much, and then maybe your Jaundice Brothers or something... I don't know, I guess we'll just bounce around." He glanced over at his human friends, who were still standing in the center of the room and looking mildly nervous. "Feel free to sit if you like."

Shrugging, both Chad and Clair looked at one another before settling down on the floor beside Jackson's skull-print bed. They watched with a certain degree of distrust as Jackson put the first CD into the player, but they were soon bobbing their heads and enjoying themselves with the tune.

They were both surprised however when Jackson transformed into another person – Holt, probably. He was blue and fiery, and bore almost no resemblance to his other half.

"Yo! Totally diggin' them tunes!" the Hyde yelled, his voice loud and proud. Waltzing over to where Frankie was sitting and playing a little left-handed air guitar, he began to sing along with the song lyrics, encouraging her to sing with him. _"You remind me of the man!"_

_"What man?"_ the Frankenstein responded, humoring him.

_"The man with the power!"_

_"What power?"_

_"The power of VOODOO!"_

_"Voodoo?"_

_"Yeah, you do, you do!"_

_"Do what?"_

Clair raised an eyebrow and smirked a bit. She couldn't help it; watching this new side of Jackson and that Stein girl that he'd always had such a crush on going back and forth with one another in such a way was actually pretty cute.

Laughing and clearly enjoying himself to an extreme degree, Holt picked Frankie up off the bed and spun her around the room. "Dance with me, baby! C'mon, Frankie-fine! Shake that thang!"

Frankie laughed as he spun her, holding onto him for dear life.

_"Hocus pocus, allacarex!"_ Holt was singing, and this time Chad was even humming along. _"Save us from the man with the hex! Save us from his evil curse! It's gonna get bad, yeah, it's gonna get worse!"_

Chad and Clair were both really getting into the music before too long, bobbing their heads and humming along with the music. Chad even started dancing to it, along with Holt and Frankie, and he was trying to sing along with the songs as well.

"So who is it that we're listening to now?" Chad asked, getting a loud response from Holt.

"This would be Ghostly Buster, yo!" With that, the blue-skinned kid closed his eyes as the next song began, and his hands lifted up and began to move as if he were playing the keyboard. _"Scarecrows walkin' 'round, scarin' everyone in town..."_

_"Black cats make it worse,"_ Frankie jumped in, happy to be her friend's backup. _"Bringin' down the curse..."_

Smiling broadly, both of them turned to one another and sang together. _"On this dead wakin,' bone shakin,' mirror breakin' Halloween night!"_

Clair smirked and elbowed Chad. "Those two make a good pair, don't they?"

"Yeah, I guess..." her friend muttered, looking a little confused. "Or maybe a nice threesome."

"Chad!"

"What?! I count three people! What else do you call it?"

Clair facepalmed and rolled her eyes, not wanting to really have to answer Chad's question.

Meanwhile, completely oblivious to the two humans, Holt and Frankie were still dancing and singing together, matching the Groovy Ghoulies word for word.

_"You cannot run, and you cannot hide! Whatcha gonna do when things go bump in the night? 'Cause wherever you go and wherever you hide, yeah, you better face it, baby! Things go bump bump bump in the night!"_

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**Hope you guys enjoyed these chapters. (And all of the song lyrics were randomly picked from various 'Scooby-Doo' episodes.)**


	27. Chap 26: Freaky Just Got Fabulous

**Wow... Been awhile... Sorry 'bout that.**

**Okay, this is a really fun chapter with a focus on Clair and the ghouls. A little different, but I thought it was fun, anyway. So, without further ado, please enjoy this installment.**

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Chapter 26: "Freaky Just Got Fabulous"

_There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made my discovery._

_It was a fine, clear, January day, wet under foot where the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the Regent's Park was full of winter chirrupings and sweet with spring odors. I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbors; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation._

_I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde. A moment before I had been safe of all man's respect, wealthy, beloved – the cloth laying for me in the dining-room at home; and now I was the common quarry of mankind, hunted, houseless, a known murderer, thrall to the gallows._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

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Currently, Clair was sitting at the foot of an empty coffin in the bedroom of Jackson's next door neighbor, Draculaura, watching with a certain degree of fascination as a variety of monster girls scrambled around like so many ants. It seemed that Frankie and her ghoulish friends were having some sort of dress-making get-together, preparing for the school dance, and the Frankenstein girl had asked Clair if she wanted to join the fun.

Now, normally Clair shied away from being involved with anything that could be seen as too girly or prissy, but she made an exception for this; a monster makeover was just too good to pass up!

So, here she was, a "normie" sitting in the bedroom of a vampire, having been invited by a Frankenstein, and now watching as a large group of female monsters of all varieties were mixing and matching pieces of outfits to create something new.

The ghouls she was watching included Frankie, whom she was familiar with and was fast becoming good friends with, Draculaura, who seemed okay, and several others whom Clair had just met. A yeti girl named Abbey, a she-wolf named Clawdeen (she had had to spell it out for Clair to understand, as it sounded exactly like the name 'Claudine'), a sea creature named Lagoona, a zombie called Ghoulia, and a mummy named Cleo.

Clair remembered Ghoulia from that one lunch period when she and Chad learned that Jackson could speak Zombie. She still didn't understand what the zombie girl was saying and was pretty much left out of the loop, but she tried not to let it bother her too much. It seemed as though Abbey didn't speak Zombie either, since the yeti was always asking the other girls for a translation, so Clair figured that she wasn't alone.

She was also familiar with Cleo de Nile, but then, who at their school wasn't? She had once been a princess of Ancient Egypt, and, while her dynasty was little more than a few sentences in even the most detailed history book, she still behaved like a ruler. She was often seen walking the halls of New Salem High, her gait moving as if she were part of a royal procession or something.

But, watching the mummified princess interacting with her best friends... This was different. Clair was pleasantly surprised to see that there was much more to the infamous de Nile than met the eye, and it was oh so refreshing! She was actually pretty... nice... when she was relaxing and having a good time.

But, she certainly didn't like humans, and Clair had quickly gotten used to the cold shoulder treatment that the mummy was giving her. Clair was a tough chick though, so it was going to take a lot more than a few bigoted glares from someone who can't let go of the past to get to her.

As it was, Clair found that Lagoona and Abbey were easy to get along with, and she was more than willing to help them with their own dresses when they asked her for it. And it was kind of fun... It struck her that, while humans would go out and either buy or rent an outfit for special occasions, monsters would dig into their closets and make their own. Part of her wondered why they did, and part of her wondered why her own species didn't.

At the mermaid's request, Clair began carefully braiding Lagoona's hair, which was a bit of a trick. The sea creature's hair was long, curly, and wet, since she would pour water over herself every once in a while.

"So, um, can I ask what's with the water?" Clair asked, trying not to be rude but being unable to help herself.

Lagoona tilted her head back, smiling up at the human. "Well, since I've got a good deal of fish in my genes, my body's used to the water. If I allow my skin to get too dry or anything, I could easily become very sick."

Clair nodded, putting a scrunchie around the end of the long braid. "Cool."

She was surprised to turn and find Abbey sitting nearby, studying her closely. "Um... Hi?"

The yeti nodded in acknowledgment, but said nothing at first. She finally spoke, though. "Like your look. Hair is short, easy to deal with. Clothes are simple, make-up is different from most. You try, but not too hard. This is good trait."

"Oh... uh, thanks?"

Draculaura laughed. "Don't mind Abbey, Clair. That's just the way she talks."

The goth shrugged, deciding that she was probably better off not asking for too many details. Monsters were fascinating, but she knew better than ask them too many questions – she might get answers that she didn't like.

"Oh my ghoul! Clair!" Frankie suddenly shrieked, her neck bolts sparking with excitement and making Clair nervous. "You've just been sitting there and missing out on all the fun! C'mon! Let's give you a makeover!"

Clawdeen's eyes lit up beside her Frankenstein friend. "A monster makeover!"

Something about the way they were all looking at her made Clair very, very nervous.

Actually, the 'monster makeover' wasn't as bad as it sounded. The seven she-creatures all lunged into Draculaura's closet and started finding some her old, black, gothic clothes that the sparkle vampire didn't wear anymore. The clothing was arranged, rearranged, altered, nixed, and altered again.

Clawdeen was clearly quite the seamstress, as she was mixing and matching the clothes to make them the right size for Clair; Clair wasn't the largest girl in New Salem High, not by any means, but she was certainly taller and broader than Draculaura. But, by cutting apart skirts and tights and tops and resewing them together with other articles of clothing, Clawdeen was able to transform everything into a whole new outfit.

Meanwhile, somehow Clair had been talked into allowing Cleo de Nile to redo her makeup, something that definitely made her nervous. She didn't like the way Cleo was looking at her at all. Said mummy was looking down her bronze nose at the human, her lips pursed in such a way that clearly said "I'm trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with your face and how I'm going to fix it."

But, it wasn't too bad, overall. Cleo washed all the makeup off of Clair's face and redid it, not doing much aside from adding more 'drips' to her eyeliner, making it look like she was either crying or bleeding. She also stuck a skull-shaped rhinestone on Clair's cheek, at about the same place where Draculaura had a heart, Frankie had stitches, and Cleo herself had a gemstone. The mummy also put a headband into the goth's hair, forcing her bangs to stay out of her face.

Clair stared at her face in the mirror, her jaw dropping. She hadn't been too sure about letting Cleo de Nile touch her face, but, when she looked at her reflection... She looked good.

Cleo smirked when she saw the normie's face, but she said nothing. She just stepped back and sat down on Draculaura's bed, taking her seat beside Ghoulia and looking over some more articles of clothing. Perhaps a top covered with sapphire blue sequins...? Covered over with bandages, of course...

"C'mon, Clair!" Frankie called. "You have to see what Clawdeen's put together!"

Feeling a bit more eager, Clair jumped to her feet and walked over to the closet, where a bundle of clothing was immediately shoved into her hands and she was instructed to change.

Soon, the monster girls were oohing and ahhing over the dress that they'd put together for the normie girl. Clair stood in the middle of the room, wearing an off the shoulder top with long sleeves, a glittery corset, and a skirt that was made from many, many layers of tulle that came in a variety of colors, mostly black but also white and blue. A pair of combat boots with very high heels poked out from beneath the skirt, little skulls decorating the boots everywhere they could. Several belts with studs and skull-shaped buckles adorned her waist, and bracelets, earrings, and a choker had all been specially selected to match.

Clair stared in the mirror, completely taken aback. She couldn't remember the last time she had looked so dang hot!

"... My parents are going to think I've lost my mind!" she finally said, her voice making a miraculous reappearance. She chuckled lightly. "But I have to say, I love it!"

"I think you look great, Clair!" Draculaura squealed. The other girls all smiled and nodded in agreement.

Clair smiled at the monster girls, momentarily wondering if she could become a monster too.

* * *

**So, yeah, there's that chapter. And, before I leave, I'd like to give a special thank you to the guest who sent me the last two reviews, "commanding me to update" and "update, you fool!" Because, honestly, they really made my day!**


	28. Chap 27: Every Body Wants a Piece of You

**To the people who were worried that I was going to drop this story, relax. Trust me when I say I'm not going to drop this story as long as I have a say in it. It's just that sometimes life gets in the way of my hobbies.**

**High-fives to everyone who sticks around and patiently waits for me to update. You guys rock!**

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Chapter 27: "Every Body Wants A Piece of You"

_My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly. I have more than once observed that in my second character, my faculties seemed sharpened to the point and spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment. My drugs were in one of the presses of my cabinet; how was I to reach them? That was the problem that (crushing my temples in my hands) I set myself to solve. The laboratory door I had closed. If I sought to enter by the house, my own servants would consign me to the gallows. I saw I must employ another hand, and thought of Lanyon. How was he to be reached? how persuaded? Supposing that I escaped capture in the streets, how was I to make my way into his presence? and how should I, an unknown and displeasing visitor, prevail on the famous physician to rifle the study of his colleague, Dr. Jekyll? Then I remembered that of my original character, one part remained to me: I could write my own hand; and once I had conceived that kindling spark, the way that I must follow became lighted up from end to end._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

"Dude, if I never see another wire – !" Chad was whining.

Jackson glanced up as he strategically plugged another one into the appropriate hole. He and Chad had been setting up all the lighting and sound systems all by themselves for the past... well, it had actually only been about ten minutes, but to hear Chad tell it you'd have thought they'd been working on it for the past six hours!

"Oh, stop your complaining, Chad!" Lilith called from nearby, where she and Cleo were planning out where all the decorations were going to go. "You've only been here for barely ten minutes, during which time Jackson has been doing most of the work!"

Chad pouted, but became quiet.

Jackson couldn't help but sigh in relief, silently thanking all of the powers of Heaven and Hell for Lilith von Hellscream.

"Hey, why are you so good with this stuff, anyway?" Chad asked, interrupting his prayers of thankfulness. His fellow human gestured at all the pieces of technology that was scattered around them.

The young Jekyll shrugged. "My cousin and I play a lot of video games, so guess I'm used to figuring out what cord goes where. It's not that hard when you think about it."

"Maybe it's not for you super geniuses," Chad answered. "But my head swims every time I look at these contraptions! I mean, I know how they operate once they're up and running, but it's the plugging them in that confuses me."

He sighed. "I'm technologically impaired."

Jackson chuckled at his friends plight as he finished putting the equipment together. "Well, we're finished, Mr. Impaired. Is there anything else we need to do?"

Before Chad could open his mouth, Lilith walked over. "Why, yes, there is! You boys could us put up decorations for the dance, since the decorating committee will be here in a few minutes to get started on that!"

Chad sighed again. "I have homework to do..."

"Sorry. Dance before work."

A few hours later, Lilith and Cleo looked around the gymnasium, taking in all of the balloons and streamers that had been set up. They didn't think it was perfect, but they seemed to be having indecision about how it could be improved, so they just decided that it was fine the way it was and told everyone that they could go home.

Jackson took a moment to look around at room himself. There had been a lot of arguing between Cleo and Lilith, as well as the humans and the monsters on the decorating committee, about what sort of decorations should be used and where they should go. The humans wanted everything to have bright, happy colors, like reds and greens and blues and yellows, but the monsters wanted everything to be dark. Arguments had been held over the colors of balloons, the placements of posters, whether they should have streamers or chains hanging from the ceiling, and what sort of lighting they should use. As a result of all the fighting, compromises had come about, and now there was a little bit of everything spread and mixed throughout the gym.

Red and yellow balloons could be found in the same clusters as black balloons and white ones that looked like skulls. Streamers and chains alike hung from the doorways and ceilings, mixing and melding together in a unique fashion. Glow in the dark decals had been put to the walls, and confetti of all shapes and colors had been thrown to the floor.

Here were humans and monsters, working together for nothing more or less than a school dance.

It made Jackson feel just a bit special to be a part of both worlds, a feeling he was beginning to get at regular intervals these days.

Bidding a farewell to Chad as he walked out the door, Jackson headed for home, hoping that Heath hadn't entered the house uninvited and destroyed anything while he was gone.

He turned the corner, a huge, hulking figure stepped out from behind a crop of bushes, blocking his path. The figure had a bull's face, a nose ring, and horns, with blonde, human hair topping it off. A red T-shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots rounded out his clothing, while a bovine tail twitched impatiently behind him.

"Where do you think you're going, normie?" The creature asked, his hot breath coming out of his nostrils as he snorted.

Jackson frowned, recognizing the figure as Manny Taur, one of the school bullies. While he had actually committed all the names and faces of the school bullies to heart within the first two weeks – Manny, Valentine, Toralei, Nefera, and so on – he hadn't actually had the misfortune of running into one as of yet.

"I don't think I'm going anywhere," he answered finally, crossing his arms over his chest. Bullies didn't scare him anymore... especially not bovine bullies with beef for brains! "I'm very well aware that I am currently going home. So, if you don't mind..."

He moved to sidestep Manny, but the minotaur was already one step ahead of him.

"I don't _like_ normies," Manny said, his voice slow and deliberate.

"I don't think I'm a huge fan of minotaurs myself. Now, get out of my way, dumb ox."

The man-bull snorted. "_What_ did you say?!"

If he thought Jackson was going to back down now, he was dead wrong. The young Jekyll was tired and not in the best of moods right, and he could feel something distinctly Hyde-ish creeping into his consciousness. "I said, _'get out of my way, you big dumb ox of a bull!'_"

"Who're you callin' a _'bull?!'_" came the indignant reply. Now Manny was really mad, and he raised one of his beefy fists in the air, intending for it to collide with Jackson's skull.

Instead though, his large fist was caught by a much, much smaller hand with blue skin and thumb ring.

Holt growled lowly as he looked up at the minotaur. He wasn't familiar with the bovine boy that stood before him but, judging from the vibes he'd been getting off of Jackson, he could be nothing but trouble.

Not a friend. Not a friend at all... An enemy.

Manny froze for a second, his brain having stalled completely. "What the heck – ?! Who are you?!... _What_ are you?!"

"Your worst nightmare," Holt smirked as he delivered a line he'd always wanted to say. "Ya wanna piece o' me, yo?!"

The minotaur stood no chance. There was little one could do when fighting with an angry Hyde that was on the defensive. Holt didn't injure him too badly, knowing better than to get in trouble, but he injured the bully enough to suit himself.

When he was finished, Manny shuffled away quietly, wiping blood from his nose and squinting through his new black eye.

Holt laughed, reveling in what he'd done. He knew good and well that the minute they got home Jackson would give him a stern talking to, and probably ground him, and he might even get scolded by their mother... But for now, he just laughed. It struck him as funny, and it had felt darn good to put that man-bull back in his place.

"I know it's wrong," Holt whispered, directing his statement at Jackson, who was currently sitting in their shared head and growing mildly frustrated. "But, c'mon, JJ! You know he had it coming to him!"

He smirked. "Besides; who'll b'lieve him when he says you beat him up? Huh? It won't go on yer permanent record or nothin,' 'cause no one'll really think it was you!"

Jackson rolled his eyes as he was allowed to resume control over their body. He watched with some fascination as his skin changed from blue back to Caucasian white.

"Y'know somethin?'" he asked, his voice coming out with a slight twist, sounding like Holt's instead of his own. "A Hyde side could come in pretty handy, couldn't it?"

He could feel Holt's smirk come across his lips.

And he welcomed it.


	29. Chap 28: It Starts By Smiling

**Aw, thank you all so much for the kind words you put in your reviews! Stay awesome, everyone!**

**This chapter includes some bro time with our favorite nerdy normie and snake-headed pal (and there is one vaguely suggestive comment from Deuce, but nothing over the top or anything).**

**Read on, Jekyll fans.**

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Chapter 28: "It Starts By Smiling"

_Thereupon, I arranged my clothes as best I could, and summoning a passing hansom, drove to an hotel in Portland Street, the name of which I chanced to remember. At my appearance (which was indeed comical enough, however tragic a fate these garments covered) the driver could not conceal his mirth. I gnashed my teeth upon him with a gust of devilish fury; and the smile withered from his face – happily for him – yet more happily for myself, for in another instant I would have certainly dragged him from his perch. At the inn, as I entered, I looked about me with so black a countenance as made the attendants tremble; not a look did they exchange in my presence; but obsequiously took my orders, led me to a private room, and brought me wherewithal to write._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

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Deuce practically collapsed against his locker, exhausted from his long talk with Cleo. He loved his ghoul to death and all, but she could be hard if not flat impossible to handle when she got her heart and mind set on something. And right now it was the school dance.

The gorgon looked up when he saw Jackson pass by. He couldn't quite place it immediately, but there was definitely something different about his normie friend.

The Jekyll was walking down the hall of New Salem High with a spring in his step, a tune on his tongue, and a smile on his lips. That's when it hit Deuce exactly what was wrong with this picture.

"Yo, Jackson!" he called, causing the normie to stop and come out of his reverie. "What's cookin?'"

Jackson turned to his friend with a smile. "Nothing much. You?"

Deuce stalled for a minute, so struck was he by the new look to Jackson's face. "What's with the smile, dude? I... I don't think I've _ever_ seen you look so happy!"

A light smirk played on his lips, making him look distinctly snake-like. "Didjou score some points with Frankie last night or somethin?'"

This caused Jackson to blush, but he recovered soon. "NO! We're just friends! … at the moment. W-we're not like that!"

Deuce chuckled at his friend's discomfort. "Don't worry, prude! I know you wouldn't do a thing like _that_... Prob'ly don't even know _how_..."

Jackson glared at his friend and looked away, still blushing.

"Hey, I'm just kiddin' ya, bro! But really, what's with the happy face today? I've seriously never seen you smile like that before. Y'know, aside from anytime involving Frankie!"

"What? I can't just be happy?"

Deuce put his head to the side. "Dude, your basically never _that_ happy. It's not your style."

Jackson shrugged. "I've just been straightening some things out in my life a lot here lately, and I think I'm finally starting to make some headway."

"How so?"

"Well... I'm at peace with having a Hyde side, and he and I actually get along with each other... ah, most of the time, anyway..." Jackson thought for a minute, then smiled again. "I guess it's just that I don't have all that stress and bother coming in from my duality anymore. It's like... I just don't have to worry about it anymore. Like I know for sure that Holt and I will turn out just fine."

The bell rang, and the two turned and headed for class, hoping that Mr. Hack wouldn't behead them for being a nanosecond or two late.

Deuce watched Jackson out of the corner of his eye, finding it odd that the Jekyll could be so... _happy_. If it had been anyone else who looked like they were on Cloud 9, if it were Clawd or Heath or Invisibilly, it wouldn't have been so unnerving to see a smile on their face. But this was Jackson, and it was just plain strange that he was even capable of smiling.

But, this was New Salem, a town crawling with wild humans and monsters. Stranger things had happened.

"But, what about, y'know, what happened to your dad?" Deuce asked, causing Jackson's smile to slip off again. "Didn't his Hyde side make him, well..."

Jackson frowned. His father's Hyde side had driven him insane, forcing the man to commit suicide so that he could protect not only himself, but many others as well.

"Holt and I... We're different from our father," he said slowly. "I mean, we're a little bit like him. There are two of us, and we're both pretty opposite, but... Holt's not evil. He hasn't killed a man yet. Whether he ever will or not, I can't say for sure."

A strange look crossed over Jackson's face, as if he were remembering something he didn't like, before he continued on with his thoughts.

"Holt is... hard to handle. But not evil. He has good intentions, even if they don't often end well. And... it's just really hard for me to stay mad at him. He's like my brother or something, and I can't help but ultimately love him as such. Our fathers didn't have that kind of relationship."

Jackson got a vaguely faraway look on his face as he sat down in the classroom, the contented smile coming back to him as Deuce sat beside him. "It's just really nice to be able to wake up in the morning and not be afraid of what's going to happen. No matter what transpires, Holt's always got my back, and I've always got his. It's as simple as that."

Deuce frowned. "I thought _we_ were like that, bro."

Jackson frowned as well, looking over the gorgon studiously. "Deuce, are you... jealous?"

"What? No! Why would I be jealous?!"

Jackson didn't answer. He just sat there, looking at his friend, his arms crossed over his chest, remaining completely silent.

"Well, it's just weird!" the gorgon finally hissed. "I mean... I dunno..."

He thought about it. Why did he have the feeling that he didn't want to share Jackson with someone else like that?

The answer was simple, he soon realized: he counted Jackson as his best friend, and he knew that Jackson counted him that way, too. None of the others dudes came close. Not Clawd, Invisibilly, Bram, Romulus, Gil, Slow Moe, or even Heath came that close.

He and Jackson connected with one another in a way that they hadn't connected with anyone else before. It was like he'd finally found the right shaped plug to fit the hole in his life.

No, he didn't quite view Jackson in a romantic way. More like a friend or a brother... but a really close one.

He sighed. "Yeah, I'm just jealous, I guess. It's weird, but I am. I mean, I'm used to basically being your only friend. I'm used to you comin' to _me_, but, if you're gonna go to someone else for backup instead..."

An irritated hiss escaped his mouth, as well as several from the snakes atop his head. He couldn't word his feelings any better than that, so now he just had to hope that the normie could decipher his meaning.

An odd look came over Jackson's face. "I've never had anyone who wanted me all to themselves before... I'm not sure how to react."

"If it was Frankie you'd know how to react, dude," Deuce chuckled. "In fact, I'm pretty sure that certain body parts would react without you tellin' 'em how!"

Jackson blushed and hid his face in his hands, mortified at the very thought.

A smile slowly spread across Deuce's face as he began to understand Jackson's side of things. The idea that he wouldn't have to rely on anyone else to get him out of trouble, that idea that he would always have someone with him to take care of him and care for him... It was a novel idea.

"Sorry 'bout earlier," the gorgon said simply, holding his fist out towards the normie. "Bros?"

Jackson chuckled and bumped his own fist against Deuce's. "For life, and whatever comes after that."

A knife flew between them, hitting a spider on the wall right behind them. They both turned to the front of the room with horror.

"There is no talkin' in moi classroom, ye hea' me?" Mr. Hack asked, glaring up at the two of them.

They nodded quickly and turned back to their books.


	30. Chap 29: Let's Be Realistic

**Back in with a few more chapters for you guys. Sorry 'bout the wait.**

**In other news, I've written a few more chapters and we're starting to get close to wrapping this story up!**

**So, please sit back and enjoy more Jackson and Holt goodness!**

* * *

Chapter 29: "Let's Be Realistic"

_Hyde in danger of his life was a creature new to me; shaken with inordinate anger, strung to the pitch of murder, lusting to inflict pain. Yet the creature was astute; mastered his fury with a great effort of the will; composed his two important letters, one to Lanyon and one to Poole; and that he might receive actual evidence of their being posted, sent them out with directions that they should be registered._

_Thenceforward, he sat all day over the fire in the private room, gnawing his nails; there he dined, sitting alone with his fears, the waiter visibly quailing before his eyes; and thence, when the night was fully come, he set forth in the corner of a closed cab, and was driven to and fro about the streets of the city. 'He,' I say – I cannot say 'I.' That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred._

_And when at last, thinking the driver had begun to grow suspicious, he discharged the cab and ventured on foot, attired in his misfitting clothes, an object marked out for observation, into the midst of the nocturnal passengers, these two base passions raged within him like a tempest. He walked fast, hunted by his fears, chattering to himself, skulking through the less frequented thoroughfares, counting the minutes that still divided him from midnight._

_Once a woman spoke to him, offering, I think, a box of lights. He smote her in the face, and she fled._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

Jackson stood in the kitchen, staring around with a blank look on his face, vaguely resembling a deer caught in headlights. His mother was working late again, which left him to fend for himself as far as dinner went.

But, he was used to it. Being a single mother and being too proud to admit when she needed help, Sydney Jekyll often worked late shifts, working overtime and earning enough money to care for herself and her son. And besides, she was always putting money into his college savings account, saying that she wanted her genius son to get a good education when he was older.

So, over the years, Jackson had become accustomed to taking care of himself. He could clean the house with the best of them, and he knew every little aspect to doing laundry, something that he knew most kids his age were unfamiliar with, and he had a basic idea of how to cook.

But it was only very basic. His concept of cooking predominately centered around frozen dinners and boxes of pasta, not going very far past the basics. It was funny that he could be so talented when it came to chemistry and calculus, but he couldn't cook an actual meal if his life depended on it.

"So, what'll it be tonight?" he asked, speaking into the empty kitchen. He didn't receive an answer, but he hadn't really expected one. Holt never spoke to him unless specifically addressed, not to mention the fact that he was currently asleep.

Jackson had allowed Holt to roam the town for past three nights, and the Hyde seemed to have tired himself out. The Jekyll didn't know quite what Holt did on those nights, and he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to find out. But, so long as Holt didn't get hurt and there were no mysterious deaths or injuries reported in the paper, Jackson figured it was safe.

So, since Holt was curled up within his corner of their shared mind and fast asleep in dreamland, Jackson literally had the whole place to himself. He'd forgotten what it was like to truly be alone.

Rolling his eyes at how pathetic he was being about the whole thing, he turned back to the task of searching for food. He finally found it in the form of a large box of macaroni and cheese mix.

He looked up from his pot of boiling water when he thought he saw something move out of the corner of his eye. Turning just quick enough, he caught a flash of green and yellow walking across the floor before the colors changed to blend in with their surroundings.

Jackson smiled to himself. "Alright, Crossfade. Where did you go?"

He dropped to the floor and began crawling around, searching carefully for his runaway lizard. "C'mon, boy! I'm trying to make dinner here! Now is no time to be playing tag!"

The chameleon's face appeared nearby, his head becoming clear to see while his body remained obscured from sight, causing him to look a bit like the Cheshire cat. If Jackson didn't know any better, he'd say the lizard was laughing at him.

The nerd was distracted by the sound of water boiling just then, causing him to roll his eyes. "Sorry, Crossfade. I've got macaroni to make."

Climbing up from the kitchen floor and washing his hands – there was bound to be germs on the floor, considering how often they walked on it – he proceeded to open the box and pour noodles into the boiling water. His reptile companion reappeared completely, jumping up onto the counter beside him to keep him company.

Jackson glanced at the chameleon, glad to have some form of company. A lizard was better than nothing, and, despite his surly behavior, Jackson Jekyll was never one to complain.

"It's been a long week, Crossfade," the normie said softly. He pulled out a spoon and gently began to stir the noodles around in the pot. "And it hasn't been easy on me."

Crossfade cocked his head to the side, as if to ask a question.

Jackson smiled gently and rubbed his finger over the top of the lizard's scaly head. "This past week especially, I've learned something about myself. Don't ever say anything to Holt about this, because I don't think I'll ever live it down, but... I think I enjoy being Holt Hyde."

The noodles became soft, and he turned to drain them from the water.

"I like being Jackson Jekyll too, don't get me wrong, but... Holt is wild, and adventurous, and charismatic..." He trailed off for a bit, wondering how exactly he felt about his 'other half.'

"... I guess... He's just cool," he finally managed. "And I like being cool and wild. I actually like being adventurous and charismatic."

He shook his head in mild amusement at his own self as he poured cheese over the noodles. "Who would have ever thought that I would actually enjoy being the center of attention. All my life I've done nothing but stay on the sidelines and watch, but now that I've had a taste of being an exciting DJ and the unlife of the party, I have this deep hunger for more."

He pulled an enormous bowl from the cabinet, spooning all two boxes of macaroni into the bowl and promptly spinning around on his heels and heading to his room with it. Hey, when your mother isn't home, you can eat like that!

He settled down onto his bed, positioning himself so the his mac and cheese was sitting in his lap and his face was peering out the window. Crossfade followed him, climbing up to rest on the bed beside him.

Jackson shoveled some noodles into his mouth, swallowing them whole to sait his hunger. It occurred to him that he sort of wanted to run the music at the school dance – in the form of Holt, of course.

"But I can't reveal who exactly I am to either Cleo or Lilith, though," he explained to his faithful chameleon. "If I do, Cleo will just be sure to fire Chad and hire Holt. And Chad really wants to do this, and I can't just take something from my friend, no matter how I feel about it..."

His mind was filled with a mixture between desire and longing and fear and repulsion. He wasn't sure how to react.

"I want it..." he muttered. "But I can't do that to Chad..."

His face faded into the evening as he looked out the window, watching as the sun sank below the horizon. He ran his hand absentmindedly over Crossfade's rough back, eliciting a soft growl of approval from the reptile, and continued to shovel spoonfuls of mac and cheese down his gullet.

It was hard enough to be a teenager; why did he have to be a teenager with two personalities? A teenager with wildly different tastes that clashed together, and yet also merged and meshed beautifully to become who he was? A teenager who was a part of two parallel worlds, and still couldn't find a place where he quite fit in?

It felt as if his whole life was nothing but one deception or another, over which he had no control.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave," he whispered into the darkening sky. "When forth we set out to deceive."


	31. Chap 30: Most Characteristic

Chapter 30: "Most Characteristic"

_When I came to myself at Lanyon's, the horror of my old friend perhaps affected me somewhat: I do not know; it was at least but a drop in the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked back upon these hours. A change had come over me. It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me. I received Lanyon's condemnation partly in a dream; it was partly in a dream that I came home to my own house and got into bed. I slept after the prostration of the day, with a stringent and profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me could avail to break. I awoke in the morning shaken, weakened, but refreshed. I still hated and feared the thought of the brute that slept within me, and I had not of course forgotten the appalling dangers of the day before; but I was once more at home, in my own house and close to my drugs; and gratitude for my escape shone so strong in my soul that it almost rivaled the brightness of hope._

_– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

* * *

"Stop fidgeting so much, Jackson," Sydney scolded her son as she tried to slick his hair back. She smiled gently when he tried to escape her hands again.

It was the night of the school dance, and Sydney Jekyll wasn't quite sure who was more excited: Jackson or herself.

"Are you going with a girl?" she asked while Jackson ducked her hands again and walked over to his closet, pulling out some of his nice clothes.

He nodded, a blush sneaking across his face and making his glasses steam. "... Frankie..."

Sydney smiled and pointed to his clothes. "Is that what you're going to wear?"

He shrugged uncertainly. "It seems boring, doesn't it? I mean, Deuce is going to be wearing a wild suit with diamonds all over it, and Clawd's going to be wearing some of his normal clothes, only really tattered and shredded... I don't even know what Heath is going to wear..."

He glared at his clothing, as if willing them become something different.

Sydney hummed a bit as she watched her son; he was a human who wanted to dress the same way his monster friends were going to dress. But, his clothing wasn't as unique as he wanted it to be, it seemed.

Her hair and her eyes lit up as a thought occurred to her. She grasped her son's hands and pulled him to the attic. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

Reaching the attic, Sydney walked among the boxes, finding the one she was looking for after a few minutes. "Ah! Here it is!"

Jackson took the box from his mother and, with a level of curiosity, pulled the flaps open and looked inside.

The box contained a few pieces of mens clothes. His father's clothes.

Jackson stared at the polo shirts, khakis, vests, and suit jackets in slight awe, then turned to gaze at his mother.

"I think you might be able to find something better in here than in your closet," Sydney told him, reaching into the box and pulling out articles of clothing. A suit jacket that smelled strongly of tobacco and chemicals was brought into the light, along with a few white shirts that were torn and covered with the stains of many liquids, causing them to look like mad scientist lab coats, and a walking stick.

Jackson grasped one of the stained shirts, an idea forming in his head.

_'Alright,'_ Holt's voice whispered in his head. _'Let's rock and roll with this!'_

* * *

Victor and Viveka Stein were both in the front room when Jackson arrived to pick up Frankie. She wasn't ready yet, so the Steins, being such good parents, seized on the opportunity to get to know her new friend – or in the case of Mr. Stein, to interrogate his daughter's potential boyfriend.

But it went alright. It turned out that both of the Steins were once good friends with Jackson's parents, and they had both even gotten along alright with his father's Hyde side. Mr. Stein was soon making mad science jokes and references, and he was pleased to the bolts when Jackson got them and didn't need to have anything explained.

Granted, Mr. Stein did still lay down certain rules for how Jackson could or couldn't behave around his daughter. He noticeably became very scary as he explained how he expected Jackson to behave, and the Jekyll actually grew pale when the older man began to describe in great detail what he would do to Jackson if the boy did anything to hurt his daughter.

Jackson swallowed and nodded, hoping that the gory images wouldn't ruin the rest of his evening. "Y-yes, sir."

After that, Mr. Stein relaxed a bit and changed the subject, asking Jackson how his mother was doing and if he'd read any good books lately.

They were in the middle of a deep discussion about quantum physics when Frankie finally came downstairs, dressed to the nines and looking drop dead gorgeous.

Her hair was piled up on top of her head, similar to her mother's beehive do, and she had painted blue lightning bolts across her face. She wore a shrug top over a small, black dress, and she had a clear over skirt with large 'stitch' decals all over it. High heeled boots, fingerless gloves, and bolt earrings completed her ensemble.

Mrs. Stein applauded her daughter's wonderful sense of fashion. "You look lovely, dear. Victor, isn't she beautiful?"

Mr. Stein frowned, looking his daughter up and down. "I think the skirt on that dress isn't long enough."

"Victor!" his wife silenced him with a glare and pulled him into the next room, where they could be heard whispering frantically to one another.

Frankie rolled her eyes, then turned to smile sheepishly at Jackson. "Sorry about my dad. He's a little... protective. Please tell me you haven't been here long enough to have gotten the 'be nice to my daughter or else' lecture?"

"Oh, I got the lecture alright."

She sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Frankie, it's fine." He smiled at her. "As scary as your father is, it's nice to know that he loves you enough to worry about how a boy will behave around you."

Seeing how awkward she was, Jackson decided to change the subject. "I think you look wonderful tonight."

Frankie smiled at him brightly. "Thanks! You look nice, too."

She looked down at his own outfit. He had decided on wearing black pants with decals of flaming yin-and-yang signs on the ankles, an untucked dress shirt and vest, complete with an old fashioned watch chain that stretched from a button to a pocket, and one of his father's stained white shirts over the top of it all, very much resembling a lab coat on his much smaller frame.

He had dyed his bangs not only yellow, but also red and orange, making them look like flames, and he'd messed up his hair to make himself look like a mad scientist. His old black-rimmed glasses sat perched on his nose, since he'd decided to go without the contacts for tonight, but he'd put his contacts in one of his pockets in case Holt came out and wanted them.

"Fire-elemental meets mad scientist," Frankie remarked. "I like it! It's very you!"

Her parents came back in just then, her mother grinning while her father looked like a horse that had either just been whipped or lost a race.

Viveka Stein smiled broadly at the two teenagers, ushering the two of them out the door. "Alright, go on, you two! Have fun!"

"Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad!" Frankie called over her shoulder, eager to leave the house and go to the dance now that she was ready. She practically pushed Jackson out the door, apparently not even going to wait for her parents' responses.

Jackson gave her a sidelong look as they walked down the street, heading for New Salem High. "Wasn't that kind of rude, Frankie? I mean, you didn't even give your parents the chance the say anything more."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "I know, I know. But, if we'd stayed in any longer, my dad would have pulled me back upstairs and made me dress like an undead nun or something! I find it's just easier to go now and either let Mom argue with him for me or beg his forgiveness later."

"Oh, sounds like goody-two-shoes Miss Stein has a rebellious streak in her," Jackson remarked under his breath, angling his body closer to hers.

Frankie laughed, blushing lightly. "Yeah, I guess I do. Does that turn you on or something?"

"Maybe..."

They didn't get to finish their flirting though, as just then a pair of familiar monsters called to them from further up the sidewalk. Coming back down to earth, Jackson glanced around, noticing how all of the high schoolers from the monster side of town were walking towards the school, making it look a bit like a Halloween procession.

"Hey, cuz!" came Heath's voice from not too far ahead. He'd lit himself up, and was waving his fiery hand in the air, looking rather like a torch or a beacon in the dark. He was wearing a strangely torn up and burnt suit, all black or red with flame print here and there.

Abbey walked beside him, proudly erect and towering over him in her glistening, glimmering gown.

Jackson and Frankie both chuckled and waved to their friends, moving to catch up with the hot and cold pair.

"Nice threads," Heath commented, studying Jackson's apparel. His grin faded after a moment and he looked at his cousin with mild confusion written across his face. "Those clothes... Aren't they...?"

"My father's? Yeah." The Jekyll shrugged. "Mother said I could wear them, since my own clothing is kind of, er, bland. So, I just mixed a bunch of stuff together."

He glanced at his cousin sheepishly as Frankie and Abbey sunk into girl talk with one another, and lowered his voice. "I'd rather dress uniquely like you guys, and show the world exactly who and what I am, than dress like a prestigious normie and appear to be something that I'm not."

Heath frowned, then smiled again after a moment. "You're one different kind of dude, dude."

Jackson chose to take that as a compliment.

* * *

**Reviews are appreciated. Stay awesome, peoples!**


	32. Chap 31: Most Hip and Horrific

**Okay, some big stuff happens in this chapter, and things start turning in a different direction for our friend JJ.**

**Author's notes after the chap.**

* * *

Chapter 31: "Most Hip and Horrific"

_I was stepping leisurely across the court after breakfast, drinking the chill of the air with pleasure, when I was seized again with those indescribable sensations that heralded the change; and I had but the time to gain the shelter of cabinet, before I was once again raging and freezing with the passions of Hyde. It took on this occasion a double dose to recall me to myself; and alas! six hours after, as I sat looking sadly in the far, the pangs returned, and the drug had to be re-administered. In short, from that day forth it seemed only by a great effort as of gymnastics, and only under the immediate stimulation of the drug, that I was able to wear the countenance of Jekyll. At all hours of the day and night, I would be taken with the premonitory shudder; above all, if I slept, or even dozed for a moment in my chair, it was always as Hyde that I awakened._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

~Misfit~

"C'mon, everyone! It's time for some real boogie action!" Chad hollered into the microphone as put on another CD, being sure to keep to the playlist that he and Clair had managed to put together.

Despite his rather odd lingo, Chad was rather effective. The entire student body, both monsters and humans alike, were dancing on the floor and having a great time.

Jackson enjoyed dancing with Frankie; it was a fun experience, and probably the best one of his life. He loved how Frankie had her own dance move, which involved her holding her arms straight out in the air and twisting her hips. It reminded him of how Frankenstein's Monster walked on the old black and white movie, and it was so cute when she did it.

But, despite their close friendship, the two didn't spend the entire evening dancing with each other. Jackson got too tired to keep up with the electric ghoul after a little while, and, since Frankie still wanted to dance, he suggested that she go dance with some of her other friends.

He regretted that suggestion within mere seconds, as he watched from the sidelines while Frankie danced with Whodude Voodoo, Neighthan Rot, and Andy Beast.

He ended up spending time with Clair, who was wearing an oddly festive outfit that looked like a Clawdeen Wolf special, and then later with, of all people, Toralei Stripe.

Being around Toralei when she wasn't scratching your face off was... an interesting experience. It maybe wasn't the highlight of Jackson's evening, but, surprisingly, it wasn't the worst part either.

Standing off to the side of the dance floor, the young Jekyll looked over the crowd of teenagers. He saw Howleen Wolf dancing with a shadowy girl that looked about her age, as well as Invisibilly and Spectra nearby. There was Operetta and the infamous Johnny Spirit; Ghoulia Yelps and Slow-Moe were doing the zombie shuffle; Draculaura was giggling and trying to get Clawd to waltz with her; and there was, of course, Cleo and Deuce, who were dancing with some strange combination of 'the mummy' and 'hip-hop.'

"Jackson?"

"Hm?" Shaking his head, the boy prodigy turned to look at Frankie, who'd come to stand beside him once more. "Oh, hey, Frankie. Are you done dancing with... what's-his-face?"

"His name was Andy, Jackson," she responded, rolling her eyes a bit before smiling at him. "Y'know, if I'd have known you were just going to stand over here and sulk all evening, I wouldn't have left you alone!"

"Yeah, well, I'm used to it."

"Aw, c'mon!" She tittered cutely, putting her index fingers to the ends of his lips and pushing them upwards, forcing his mouth into a smile. "Turn that frown upside-down! A smile always makes a much better umbrella!"

Her use of human cliche's amused Jackson, causing him to smile wryly at the green ghoul. "Frankie, something tells me that you've never seen an umbrella before."

Something caught his attention, and he found himself looking past her, up towards the DJ table. "Is it just me, or does Chad not look too well?"

The Frankenstein girl at his side turned to look as well, her face curious and uncertain. "I'm unfamiliar with normies' health and everything but... is his face normally that shade of green?"

The two of them headed quickly towards Chad, who was looking more ill by the second. Clair was already at his side, forcing him into a chair and inspecting him closely.

"Hang loose, dude," the goth was saying, holding her hand to her friend's forehead. "You're not looking too good."

She looked up as Jackson and Frankie approached. "He's burning up."

"That's bad, right?" Frankie tried to clarify.

Chad batted Clair's hand away, quickly hopping up to his feet. "No, I'm fine, I swear! I feel perfectly-"

He doubled over just then, wincing and wrapping his arms around his abdomen. "... I feel perfectly awful..."

"Looks like you have some sort of stomach virus, maybe," Clair thought aloud. She sighed and smiled wryly. "Get up, partner. I'll walk you home."

"But what about my music gig?" her male companion whined. "Lilith was counting on me! I think even Cleo's enjoying my musical tastes!"

Clair rolled her eyes as she ducked underneath his arm, doing her best to support her much taller friend. "Relax, man. We'll get someone else to run the show while you're laid up in bed." She turned to Jackson, giving him a meaningful look. "Right, Jackson?"

The young Jekyll raised his eyebrows in surprise. "What? Me?!"

"Yes, you." She rolled her eyes at him. "You've got the talent. And besides, you can just play human music, if you like. I mean, Chad hasn't even gotten to the monster music that we'd picked out yet, so it's not like anyone would notice. You don't have to reveal yourself to the world yet. Whatever."

Without waiting for an answer, she led the now very nauseous Chad towards the exit door.

Jackson stared after them, opening and closing his mouth with no sound coming out. Finally, he turned back to the laptop and the stack of CDs that were on the table. He looked out at the crowd of teenagers who were talking amongst themselves and staring after Chad or up at him, clearly wondering what was going on and what was going to happen next.

When he turned to look at Frankie beside him, she gave him two thumbs-up and flashed him a comforting smile.

"You can do it, Jackson!" she told him in her usual happy way that just made his spirit soar. "Knock 'em dead!"

Suddenly struck by inspiration and self-confidence, the young Jekyll smirked at the stitched-together ghoul. "Actually, no I can't. I have no idea how to pull this off. I'm scared and I don't know what to do. But I know someone who _can_ do this and is eager to have a go at it."

So saying, he picked up a CD of the monster band 'Green Night Slime' and popped it into the open tray on the side of the laptop, instantly cranking up the music.

Some sparks. Some smoke. A scream. And then –

"YO! Whassup New Salem High?! Ya ready t' get your boogie ON?!"

It was Holt Hyde who brought the party to New Salem High that night. And everyone had seen Jackson transform into Holt. The werecat was out the bag, and there was no covering it up now.

Out in the crowd, Cleo de Nile gaped like a fish at the blue-skinned boy, amazed that the incredibly cool guy she'd been trying to find for so long was, in reality, also the nerdy little normie boy she'd often shunned.

Deuce Gorgon laughed at the look on his ghoul's face, turning and grinning at Holt and flashing him a single thumbs-up. Holt winked and nodded, understanding what Deuce was saying without the need for words, proving just how much of Jackson he was.

~Misfit~

Jackson walked home with Frankie, Heath, and Abbey that night. He spent the entire walk listening to Heath gush about how great Holt was and ask questions about his cousin's duality.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

**Hehe, slight reference to the Great Prom Fiasco from a year or so ago with Jackson hanging out with Toralei. ... Remind me never to reference that utter disaster ever again.**

**Heath is eager to learn about his other cousin... even if that cousin is kinda horrible.**

**Jackson's secret is finally out in the open. It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here.**

**Anything in particular about the story you want to comment on or know more about, leave a review or shoot me an ask on Tumblr (I'm pretty much always lurking over there). Trust me, I eat your comments up like candy and I love all of them.**

**Do not send a review telling me to "update soon." They aren't helpful to either of us. (I haven't had that problem on this story too much, but some of the reviewers on my other stories seem to think I have nothing better to do than entertain them. But you guys are generally pretty cool about it, so no big.)**

**But I hope you guys enjoyed the latest installment and I hope you all had a great Halloween! Cheers!**


	33. Chap 32: Monsters, So Bizarre

Chapter 32: "Monsters: So Bizarre"

_Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self. But when I slept, or when the virtue of the medicine wore off, I would leap almost without transition (for the pangs of transformation grew daily less marked) into the possession of a fancy brimming with images of terror, a soul boiling with causeless hatreds, and a body that seemed not strong enough to contain the raging energies of life._

_The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. And certainly the hate that now divided them was equal with each side. With Jekyll, it was a thing of vital instinct. He had now seen the full deformity of that creature that shared with him some phenomena of consciousness, and was co-heir with him to death: and beyond these links of community, which in themselves made the most poignant part of his distress, he though of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic. This was the shocking thing: that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

~ the Misfit ~

There was a harsh 'clang!' as the fist of Jackson Jekyll came into contact with the door of his locker. He winced at the sudden pain in his hand.

It had been just over a month since his "big revealing" at the school dance, and there hadn't been a single minute that he hadn't regretted it. Heck, even Holt had regretted it, and he'd made Jackson know that on no uncertain terms. Their shared bedroom was filled with post-it notes and other random pieces of paper with words scribbled down, telling Jackson in graphic detail of exactly how stupid it was to transform in front of the entire school.

Ever since the dance, Jackson had been bothered night and day by the other students of New Salem High, especially the monster teens, who wanted to speak with Holt, wanted to ask Holt questions, wanted to go on a date with Holt, or other things that were Holt-related. It was annoying to both sides of the young Jekyll and Hyde boy.

Deuce shook his head, leaning against some of the nearby lockers. "Ease up on the locker, dude. Don't punch things that can't fight back."

"Yeah," Chad agreed, standing not too far away. He and Clair had been slowly and cautiously introduced to some of Jackson's monster friends over the weeks, and now it was no longer really uncommon to see the two normies walking through the school halls, talking with groups of monsters. "The locker isn't the one who made you angry!"

"I know that!" Jackson growled in a very un-Jackson-like way. "But I'm so... FRUSTRATED! It's always Holt this and Hyde that, and I just... I need some me time. Me me, not the other me!"

He opened his locker and hid his head in it, resting his chin tiredly on the bottom of the locker. "You know, not that long ago I was just a nerd that no one gave the time of day to, and honestly that was perfectly okay. At least I wasn't constantly hounded by complete strangers and fair-weather friends who are only interested in my alter-ego."

_But you are enjoying the attention,_ a voice argued in his mind.

"Shut up, Holt," he muttered, paying no mind to the confused faces of his friends.

Deuce frowned, then let out a small chuckle. "Dude, are you jealous of all the attention your Hyde-side is getting?"

"I'm not jealous," came the answer, accompanied by an annoyed sigh. "I just... GAH! I don't even know what the problem is!"

"It's simple," Clair told him, suddenly appearing out of nowhere. She glared at him, her hands on her hips. "You've never been anything before but a nerd who could win an un-popularity contest with ease – "

"Oh, that's really making me feel better!"

" – but now that Holt's a part of the picture, you're suddenly popular. It annoys you because the people who never showed any interest in you before are now all up in your grill about the other side of your personality. Right?"

The Jekyll sighed again, his head leaning against the locker. "... yeah."

Clair smirked. "Okay, so tell me this: who plays casketball with Deuce every day? When Deuce couldn't think of a good anniversary gift for Cleo, who helped him pick one out? Jackson or Holt?"

He glanced over at the gorgon, the answer slowly slipping out of him lips. "... I... did..."

"Who helped Chad set up the equipment for the sounds and lights for the dance last month? Was that Holt? I don't think so!"

Jackson opened his mouth, but was silenced once again.

"Between the two of you, which one was that managed to score a girl? Jackson! Which one is that has all the friends? Jackson! Now quit complaining! Man up and get to class!"

As if to punctuate her sentence, Clair pulled a text book and a notebook out of her locker across the hall, closed it, and walked off towards a classroom.

The boys all just stared after her for a minute, their eyebrows high on their foreheads.

"She has a point, dude," Deuce said, clearly trying to be helpful.

Jackson only gave his best friend a sideways glare. "Not helping."

"Sorry."

The young Jekyll sighed, more frustrated than anything else. "Oh, nevermind. I don't even really mean to snap at you guys, since your some of the true friends I actually have."

As he spoke, some female monsters he'd never met before walked over. They said absolutely nothing to him and mostly looked at him in disgust and disbelief as they shoved notes into his hands, before turning on their high heels and stalking off done the hallway.

Deuce and Chad both moved to look over Jackson's shoulders, eyes moving along with his as they read the notes.

Chad's eyes grew a few sizes. "I've never seen so many phone numbers outside of a phone book before in my life!"

The school bell rang just then, announcing classes and drowning out Jackson's growl of annoyance as he crumpled the stack of ghoul's numbers and threw it into the trash.

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**Author's Note: Sorry this took so long to update. I was distracted some of the time, and just not up to it mentally/emotionally other times.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Reviews are welcome, and thank you all for following and favoriting! I really appreciate it!**


	34. Chap 33: Monsters? Yes, We Are

**Double-updates because why not?**

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Chapter 33: "Monsters? Yes, We Are"

_The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll was of a different order. His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded. Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books, burning the letters and the destroying the portrait of my father; and indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in some ruin. But his love of my is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut him off by suicide, I it in my heart to pity him._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

~ the Misfit ~

Everyone at New Salem High was on pins and needles, the students all perpetually sitting on the edge of their seats. You could hardly blame them. Summer was right around the corner, bringing promises of fun and excitement with it, and school ended in less than a week.

Ms. Bloodgood, the school's esteemed headless headmistress, received enumerable complaints from the teachers and faculty members about how difficult it was becoming to keep the attention of the students. The students of the school, both human and monster alike, were anxiously making plans as to how they were going to spend their summer break, rather than paying attention to their studies.

Bloodgood only sighed and rolled her eyes slightly. As if the faculty was any better? They were every bit as anxious to finish the year as the students were.

And Jackson Jekyll... Well, Jackson had never really been anxious to get out of school before, aside from maybe just to avoid the bullies for a few months. In the past, being in or out of school had never made any difference to him, but New Salem High, and the students within, were different somehow. He had friends. He had enemies. The school had classes that actually challenged his mind and pushed him to the limit, something that he'd never gotten before.

It was so hard to believe that he'd been living in New Salem for an entire school year. To Jackson, getting to live in a place where he actually fit in and didn't stick out like a sore thumb and a place where he had other kids to hang out with over summer vacation was nothing short of living in a dream.

Such were the thoughts that circled around in his head as he sat through the last class of the year for Dead Languages, his blue eyes staring out through a classroom window. Looking out the windows in this particular school was something of a pain, though, because as often as not there were large spider webs that covered the glass. Jackson didn't mind – the spider web looked lovely with its intricate pattern, and he could still see through to the clear blue sky.

He wasn't thinking of speaking a zombie dialect right now; his mind was on the plans he and his new friends had made for the summer. He and Frankie had both decided to spend a fair amount of their vacation with each other, going to movies and hanging out on Gloom Beach and whatnot, but that would probably be later on in the summer. They both had camps they were going to a few days after school let out, Frankie to fearleading camp and Jackson to monster-teen athletic camp with Deuce, Clawd, and Heath.

No, he and Frankie hadn't started officially dating yet, and all their friends had started to joke about how long they were going to date before they announced that they were "officially dating."

"We're just friends," Jackson repeated to himself regularly. "Really, really good friends that enjoy spending lots of time together."

_'But you want to be so much more, dontcha, J-J?'_

The Jekyll rolled his eyes; Holt was awake and at it again, it sounded like. But, Jackson really didn't feel like he needed his Hyde to tell him how to live his life.

_'Aw, I'm hurt. Don't you love me, Jackie?'_

He scowled. "Not now, Holt..."

But, despite his behavior towards his other self, Jackson couldn't help but feel warm and glad inside, just knowing that there was someone there who would always be there for him. No matter what. Of course, most of that had to do with the simple fact that they both shared a body, but... it was still a nice feeling, none the less.

He didn't hear anything more from Holt for the rest of the class, but he could sense the Hyde lurking in the background recesses of his mind. Electing to ignore the remainder of this particular lesson (not that it mattered, he'd studied plenty for the final test, he'd ace it with no problem), Jackson reached into his green bag to pull out a notebook.

Opening it to a particular scheduling page, he focused his eyes on it and allowed Holt to take a look as well. He'd been arranging for Holt to host various parties and gigs that some of the other kids were having over the summer, essentially booking the Hyde's evenings for most of the summer.

A strong feeling of interest and excitement flowed through him, overflowing from Holt and spreading all throughout their shared mind.

"_Yo! People throw that many parties during summer break? Why didn'tcha tell me before, JJ?!"_

"Because I wanted to be able to focus on some of my homework for a few minutes," the Jekyll teased.

An image of a blue, smiling face and the sensation of sheer happiness rushed over his consciousness, leaving something of an impression of being hugged. _"... This sounds dumb, but... Thanks for lettin' me have this, Jackie. You seriously don't know how much I appreciate it."_

"Oh, I have an idea. They're my feelings, too, after all."

He got the feeling that Holt was about to say something else, but Mr. Rotter was suddenly standing in front of Jackson, glaring down at him.

"Was there something you wanted to say to the rest of the class, Mr. Jekyll?"

"Oh, no, sir!" Jackson shook his head, a small smile growing along his lips. "Just talking to myself!"

He could hear Holt chuckling in the back of his mind as Mr. Rotter stared at him suspiciously, finally turning and going back to the front of the classroom.

"_Best be movin' aside, mister teacher dude!"_ Holt's voice blasted into Jackson's head, making him smile more than anything else right now. _"'Cause my better half an' I got partyin' t' do!"_


	35. Chap 34: We've Got Spirits

Chapter 34: "We've Got Spirits"

_It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to prolong this description; no one has ever suffered such torments, let that suffice; and yet even to these, habit brought – no, not alleviation – but a certain callousness of soul, a certain acquiescence of despair; and my punishment might have gone on for years, but for the last calamity which has now fallen, and which has finally severed me from my own face and nature. My provision of the salt, which had never been renewed since the date of the first experiment, began to run low. I sent out for a fresh supply and mixed the draught; the ebullition followed, and the first change of color, not the second; I drank it and it was without efficiency. You [Utterson] will learn from Poole how I have had London ransacked; it was in vain; and I am now persuaded that my first supply was impure, and that it was that unknown impurity which lent efficacy to the draught._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

~ the Misfit ~

"Don't leave me all alone, Frankie-Fine!"

Frankie smiled in exasperation and rolled her eyes as she turned around to look at the blue-skinned boy behind her. She had been spending more and more time with both Jackson and Holt over the past couple of weeks, and the pair (or trio?) had become almost inseparable as they went to various places together – movies, Gloom Beach, even the library and one another's houses. They were somewhere in that in-between state of not-quite friends and not-quite more than friends.

But, now Frankie was off, along with some of the other ghouls, for a week at cheerleading camp. She was standing on the sidewalk in front of her house, her short-skirted cheerleader outfit endressing her green form, a backpack slung over her slim shoulder and a suitcase resting at her side. Holt had come over earlier that morning, even being invited to share breakfast with her family, and was now waiting with her for the bus that would take her to camp.

But, it seemed that Holt was feeling clingy this morning. The Hyde was actually laying stretched out along the sidewalk, his arms wrapped around her ankles.

"Holt, I'll only be gone for five days!"

"But I'll be looooooooooonneeely!"

Rolling her eyes again, Frankie reached down, prying his blue fingers from her legs. While she was at it, she reached into his pocket, pulling out the month-by-month schedule that she knew Jackson had put in there. "Holt, have you even seen your schedule? Do you know how many parties you've been hired to DJ for? Jackson spent weeks making sure that you wouldn't have time to be bored, you know!"

Holt's face took another a different sort of expression. "'Course I know, Frankie. It's... probably the nicest thing anyone's done for me, and I'm super grateful. It's just..."

He stared at Frankie, his eyes widening and his lips forming a pout. "I'M GOING TO MISS YOU SO MUCH!"

"Five days, Holt."

"_Oh my goth, Holt,"_ Jackson moaned from within the recesses of his mind. _"Can't you keep it together for five seconds?"_

"NOOOO!"

Frankie frowned, looking past her blue-skinned friend and further down the street. "My bus is coming, Holt. I've gotta go!"

Gripping her luggage firmly in her slim hand, the Stein girl flashed a smile as she playfully tapped Holt on the nose. "Behave yourself while I'm gone, 'kay?"

"... okay." He continued to pout and he gave her one last clingy hug, but he did let her go when the bus stopped in front of the sidewalk.

"See you in five days!" she called over her shoulder as she boarded the bus, causing Mr. Hack, the driver, to grumble and complain about public displays of affection. Lots of the other ghouls on the bus giggled and waved to Holt, some even openly trying to flirt with him, much to his disgust.

Holt did not feel at all sorry for one particularly flirty ghoul who suddenly found herself on the receiving end of a quick, harsh poke from one of Frankie's hands, which had apparently detached itself and abandoned the rest of her momentarily.

But, soon the bus was out of sight, leaving the lonely Hyde to walk home by himself.

"_You're taking this awfully hard,"_ Jackson muttered. He became concerned when his other self didn't respond immediately, and he poked his twin conscious tenderly. _"... Hey? What's wrong?"_

"... My only friend is gone."

"_Frankie isn't your only friend, Holt."_

"Yes, she is! My only real friends are you and Frankie, and do you even count? I mean, we kind of are the same person, yo!"

"_Holt..."_

Something in Jackson's voice caused Holt to stop in the middle of the sidewalk, tilting his head as though he were turning to look at the normie within his mind.

There came a sound as though Jackson was sighing in slight frustration. _"Chill, okay?"_

Holt gasped aloud as his head was suddenly tilted back, a sensation in his mind as though fingerpads were resting gently against the sides of his head, rubbing slow, tender circles into his temples.

He wanted to cry. And scream. And punch and destroy something. He wanted to hide himself inside Jackson and release all of his inner turmoil.

"_Holt... I know it's hard. I know you haven't gotten much of a chance to make real friends of your own, and I know how emotional you are about everything. But seriously? Frankie's not leaving you. She is not forgetting you. She is coming back. And in the meantime? I'm right here. I'm here to keep your passion in check, and I'm definitely not going anywhere."_

"... I know. … thanks, Jackson..."

"_Anytime." _A soft tug of the lips, a slight smile. _"Now, come on. Mom's going to have breakfast on the table by now."_

Allowing his human half to resume physical control, Holt settled into the back of his mind, content to observe Jackson's actions once more. Not for the first time, he was glad to have Jackson there for him; even if no one else was there, Jackson would be, always balancing and soothing the wild Hyde.

Two halves of the same coin. One could not exist without the other.

"What are you so giddy about all of a sudden, Holt?"

"_Oh, nothing!"_


	36. Chap 35: How About You?

**How long has it been? 5 months since I last updated?**

**Anyway, this is going to be the last official chapter for this story, and after this is an epilogue. So read on and I hope you guys enjoy it!**

**Edit: I can't believe I forgot to thank all you guys for the great reviews! I'm glad you're all enjoying the story, so thank you so much for joining me on the journey of these characters. You're all awesome. ^_^**

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Chapter 35: "How About You?"

_About a week has passed, and I am now finishing this statement under the influence of the last of the old powders. This, then, is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts or see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in the glass. Nor must I delay too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it has been by a combination of great prudence and great good luck. Should that throes of change take me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and circumscription to the moment will probably save it once again from the action of his ape-like spite. And indeed the doom that is closing on us both already changed and crushed him. Half an hour from now, when I shall again and forever re-induce that hated personality, I know how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most strained and fear-struck ecstasy of listening, to pace up and down this room (my last earthly refuge) and give ear to every sound of menace. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last moment? God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns no one other than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end._

– _excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll_

the misfit

Five days hadn't lasted quite as long as they'd sounded in Frankie's head, but at the same time they were barely long enough. Fearleading camp had been torturously delightful, but, as sad as she was to be leaving the damp cabin and the painful daily regimen, she was happy to be going home to her family and her familiar, gloomy surroundings.

The stitched-together ghoul sat on her bus seat, giggling happily with her friends while she texted Jackson/Holt's phone, letting him know that she was on her way home.

"Loved the look on Toralei's face, amiright?" Clawdeen asked, scrolling through photos she'd taken with her iCoffin. "Gonna make that my background, so I can laugh at it every day!"

Frankie laughed while Cleo leaned over, making the image 'even better' by drawing a mustache on the orange werecat, her own green fingers still moving over the keys of her own iCoffin.

_/Almost home, see you later! :)/_

When the bus came to a screeching halt on her street, Frankie grabbed her bags and headed for the door, stopping to exchange hugs and kisses with each of the other ghouls on her way out. Even so, she almost tripped over her two left feet and fell off the bus, and she found herself leaning on the concrete sidewalk to tighten the stitches on her ankles with one hand and waving the other as the bus pulled away.

"'Bye, ghouls! See in school in the fall! See ya! 'Bye!"

Gathering herself and her things back up, she turned on her heels, heading straight for her family's house. "Mother! Daddy! Wattzit! Uncle Igor! I'm hoooome!"

the misfit

At the Jekyll household, Holt was sound asleep in his bed, his body bent oddly so that the blankets were peaked like a tent above him. Feeling some sort of electronic vibrations nearby, the exhausted Hyde stuck a blue hand out from the beneath the bedding, allowing his fingers to tap around like an agitated spider, searching for whatever it was that was buzzing.

It wasn't long before his hand closed over his iCoffin and he'd dragged it under into his cocoon of warmth and darkness with him. His red eyes blinked blearily at the small screen, too tired from his late night gigs over the past week to make sense of the symbols immediately.

"... iz from F'ankie..." he mumbled, fumbling to remove his earphones. He'd fallen asleep with his tunes still cranked up again. "_You_ take it..."

As the music faded away, so did Holt, giving way to a very irritated Jackson.

"Sure. I give you control over our body for a few days and when I get it back it's exhausted. Typical. Wreck our body, why don't you?"

The half-monster's eyes ran over the text, reading it aloud. "She says she's almost home, and she'll see us later, smiley face."

Not even bothering to wait for a response from the other half of his groggy personality, Jackson settled back in his bed, slowly typing out a reply.

"Can't wait to see you. Meet me at Gloom Beach. I have a surprise. … Smiley face."

"_Oh, we have surprises now?"_

"Glad you decided to get off your lazy bum and join me."

"_Shut up."_

Jackson only grinned in amusement; here lately, he and Holt had taken to teasing and bickering with each other. It was a good release for any pent up emotions without actually harming themselves or each other. Heath had taken to referring to them as 'the conjoined brothers' because of this new development.

The half-monster's eyes lit up a moment later as his iPhone vibrated again. Boy, Frankie sure answered fast...

_/OK! :) :) :)/_

Jackson could feel something like movement in his mind, as if Holt were shifting around to join him in reading the text.

"_Wow... what'd you ever do to deserve three smileys in a row?"_ came the teasing thought pattern. "_I didn't think total losers got that kind of treatment."_

"... Shut up."

the misfit

Later that evening, Frankie Stein found herself being treated to a Gloom Beach waterside picnic. Holt had set up their private picnic scene using leftover pieces from his summer parties, constructing lines of skull lights that danced in the evening breeze, lining them along the beach blankets that covered the dark sand. A nearby boombox was cranked loud enough for them to dance to the tunes as they watched the sun set.

It was a pretty simple evening, for something that was set up by Holt, but it was also really sweet. It was nice to just spend time with him and Jackson, as the two kept switching back and forth between one another depending on the style of music that played from the boombox.

It really was a nice way to spend the evening, all in all.

The monstrous teenagers laughed as they sat down to their picnic again, Holt loudly proclaiming his hunger. It didn't take much for Frankie to agree to eat on whatever tidbits he and Jackson had brought along with them, being a hungry teenager herself with a constant need for nourishment.

She watched as Holt began pulling various treats out of the picnic casket, spider muffins and eyes cream bars and bottles of Mad-Dr. Pepper making themselves known.

Frankie smiled widely, stretching her long, green limbs up over her head, ignoring the soft 'pop'ing sounds that let her know her stitches were breaking. She'd deal with them later.

"So what are you feeding me first, Hyde?" She asked as he pulled out a small, cylindrical container.

"Well, I thought for starters we'd have some slime cake!" came her answer as nimble fingers tugged at the container's lid, allowing the pastry's mouth-watering stench to fill the air. His voice lowered a few decibels as he added, under his breath, "With a side of will-you-be-my-ghoul?"

Not sure she'd heard him correctly until the flamboyant manster flicked the cover off to reveal the slime-green cake within, Frankie felt her eyes bug out. There were words written on the cake in frosting, moving across the top of the small pastry like a spiderweb that had been stretched across it.

'Frankie, will you be my girlfriend? - JJ &amp; HH.'

The petite Frankenstein stared at the cake, then back up to the blue manster holding it. "Are you being serious right now?"

"Yeah. Jackson and I have been talking things over these past couple of weeks, thinking about ev'rything..." Setting the pastry down on the blanket in front of her, Holt shifted his body to rest his chin on his knees, arms wrapped tightly around his legs. "We're at a good place now, with each other. We're talking. We ain't fightin.' We're... communicating. Functioning. Together."

He grinned pleasantly. "It's a nice place to be. Feels pretty dang good. It's nice to be one person instead of two. … Or is it two instead of one? Heck, who even cares!"

Red eyes turned back to the ghoul beside him. "The point is, we're ready to share this place with you. If you want, that is. We made you wait this long, so if you want us to wait on you, that's completely understandable."

So many emotions were running through the Franken-girl's head. Responding to one of them, she twirled a lock of white and black hair around a green finger, her coyness only slightly undermined when a few hair strands pulled out a stitch. "Gee, Holt. I don't know..."

She could see his face fall, clearly taking her seriously, though he quickly tried to hide his disappointment. "Oh! Um, y'know, that's cool. It ain't like you _have_ to or anything, it's totally up to however you feel-"

"I was joking, Hyde!" Frankie told him. Being an easily excited ghoul, and now having something to really be excited about, she reached out to cup the manster's head in her hands, holding him steady as her mouth brushed against his.

"I want to be your ghoulfriend. And I want you to be my boyfriend – both of you!"

There was a smudge of her bright red lipstick on his blue skin, the shape becoming distorted as a dopey grin formed from his surprised mouth. His eyes shifted, wavering slightly between Holt's fiery red irises and Jackson's sharp blue ones. "... Really?"

"Really."

For once in his short life, Holt Hyde had nothing to say. His mind, both his and Jackson respective sides of it, thrummed with an intense feeling of happiness, the sensation pulsing to the rapid beat of his heart, but he had no words to say. Instead, his body leaned forward, his arms wrapping around Frankie and simply holding her tightly.

Frankie, however, was not going to simply cuddle, it seemed.

"Mine!" she proclaimed, claiming his lips with her own.

The Hyde melted into her kiss immediately, not pulling away until oxygen became a problem. "... possessive ghoul, ain'tcha?"

He didn't mind, of course. Why would he? If the ghoul of his dreams wanted to kiss him until he turned purple, where was the problem in that? He only reached out to change the music, letting his other self join in the fun, too.

It had been quite an interesting year for him, Jackson realized later, when he and Frankie were packing up their belongings, each preparing to head home but neither one wanting the evening to end, pausing to watch the stars come out in the night sky. At the beginning of the year, he'd felt more alone than he ever had before in his life. Since then, he'd made many friends, both humans and monsters alike, and, when the one of him became the two of him, his whole world exploded and grew in a way he'd never have been able to imagine. Had it really only been a year...?

"Jackson, look!" Frankie got his attention back to earth – er, to the sky, where her finger was pointing. "Look at that group of stars! Do you know it's name?"

"Yeah..." His lips tugged into a fitting smile. "It's the conjoined twins, Gemini."

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**They finally get the ghoul! *throws confetti into the air***

**Please review.**


	37. Epilogue: Knock 'Em Dead!

**Oh my ghoul, an epilogue?!  
**

**Author's Notes at the end. Happy reading!**

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Epilogue: "Knock 'Em Dead!"

"What do you want to do when you grow up?" Jackson asked a week later. He sat on the floor of Frankie's bedroom, absentmindedly rifling through one of her many, many magazines. Why did she have so many magazines for human teenagers in her room? Was this normal? "No Holt, we're not buying a new leather wardrobe. I don't care how good the model looks or how you'd look in it, we're not doing it."

His ghoulfriend laughed at their antics, moving across her bed so that she was laying on her stomach, peering over his shoulder. "But you totally should. He looks _hot_!"

"No. No leather." His eyes widened as he turned the page. "Oh my Grim Reaper – Frankie, what kind of magazine _is _this?!"

Her eyes, on the other hand, perked up. "We should all get matching-"

"NO!"

Aside from Frankie's giggling filling his ears, Jackson's head was also filled with Holt's laughter.

"... You two have weird taste." It wasn't like Jackson could really fault either of them. Holt and Frankie, despite any borrowed or leftover memories of experiences that were already residing in their minds and bodies when they were created, were actually quite young. They had a natural curiosity and a need to explore new places and try new things.

He couldn't decide if the problem was that they were too free with everything or that he was too closed about everything.

His stitched-together ghoulfriend stopped laughing after a few seconds, her mind roaming back to his earlier question. "What do I want to do...?"

"Yeah. I mean, I know you said you wanted to work in monster-human relations, but, like, where do you want to live, do you want to raise kids, that sort of thing?"

"Hmmm... I'm not sure yet." Climbing down from where she lay on her bed, she moved to sit on the floor beside him. "I haven't really given it a lot of thought."

She fixed him with a look, as though she were trying to read his mind. "Have either of you?"

"Well, Holt wants to be a DJ and a musician, and I want to go to school to get a mad science degree. Seems like there's always an opening in the field of mad science." Abandoning the magazine, he leaned back against the bed. "I'm thinking of attending Oxblood University."

"That's in Fangland, right? The monster corner of England?"

"Yeah. I have relatives that live there and I still somewhat know my way around, so it would be convenient."

The trio fell into a comfortable silence, broken only when Frankie gave her boyfriends an impulsive kiss.

Jackson's lips tingled from the faint electric surge she put off. "What was that for?"

"I just think it's exciting, y'know?" She made something of a grand gesture. "We have our whole unlives ahead of us. Some of us have dreams about the future, and some of us are still working on figuring out the present, but who cares? We have time, we'll figure it out."

She flashed a 100-volt smile. "And whatever we end up doing, I know we're gonna knock 'em dead!"

Now it was Jackson's turn to smile, as much as he tried not to. "Heh. You sure know how to give a good pep talk, don't you?"

"Hey, I get lots of practice on the fear squad!"

Before he could stop her, she punctuated her sentence with another kiss. She'd taken to kissing him a lot recently.

Of course, he didn't really have any real problems with that...

**MH**

"_What sort of political science degrees can you get from Oxblood?"_

Nearly an hour had passed since Jackson's conversation with Frankie. It had been getting late and he'd had to go home, where he was now rummaging through the fridge, searching for food. Apparently, Holt decided that he had something to say now.

Jackson glanced up from the dish of hot wings he placed in the microwave, his eyes blinking owlishly in surprise. "... Where did this come from? I thought you wanted to study music and other arts."

"_Well, sure, but I was wondering about the degree Frankie's after. Wouldn't it be cool if she went to school with us?"_

"Mmmm..." The Jekyll tilted his head to the side, deep in thought. "I guess. But that's probably something you need to talk over with Frankie herself. You can't go planning out a future involving a body without asking her first."

"_Yeah, that's probably true... Hey!"_

The sudden outcry caused Jackson to falter in his step, suddenly frozen to the spot he stood on. "Don't 'hey' me like that! Now what is it?"

His eyes were directed to a picture hanging on the wall. It was a relatively simple black frame with flames etched into the wood, encasing a photograph from a few years ago. Two smiling faces peered out from the photo, one a small black-haired boy with glasses too big for his face, and the other a grinning little matchstick with hair all aflame.

"_I've never noticed that photo before,"_ Holt's voice came in something of a whisper. _"Is that you and Heath?"_

"Yeah, back when we were twelve." The half-monster huffed a bit. "... I thought I'd buried it too deep for Mother to find this time..."

He could feel Holt grinning against the inside of his skull. _"I like it. It's proof that even the stuck-up Jackson Jekyll was a kid, too, once upon a time._

"_Hey,"_ he came back after a minute. _"Jacky, what's it like? Being a kid an' growing up, I mean?"_

It was questions like this that made Jackson pause. How do you explain childhood to someone who was never born, never grew up – just appeared out of thin air one night?

He shrugged. "Does it matter? Who cares about what was or what might have been. Probably better to focus on here and now, and better ourselves for the future."

Holt let out an odd humming sound, sounding somewhere between frustrated and placated. _"I'd still like to know what it felt like..."_

"... I know."

**MH**

Holt fell silent as Jackson went back to feeding himself, but he spoke up again later on, just as Jackson was brushing his teeth.

"_Frankie's right, y'know?"_

"Hm?"

He received an impression of a wide grin, as though a pair of stretched out lips were pressed against his temple. _"We've got our whole unlives ahead of us... And we're gonna totally slay everyone! Between my creativity and your intelligence, we can't lose!"_

"You're still thinking about that?" Jackson mused in response. His own lips pulled into a bit of a smile, thinking about the words that Frankie had said to them earlier. "But yeah. Between you and Frankie, I don't know how I could ever have any doubts left in me."

"_Because you're a loser."_

"Shut up!" Angry words aside, Jackson placed his hand on the mirror, high-fiving his own reflection. "Well, what do you say, then, Holt? Shell we 'knock 'em dead?'"

As if in answer, he saw his reflection in the mirror change, his blue eyes glinting with red and flames.

"_You know it!"_

After all, their life was only just beginning, and who knew where it would take them?

**The End**

* * *

**Well, this has been a long, exciting journey. I can't believe it's been two years since I first published the prologue, and I really can't believe that the story reached a conclusion. I've never finished a multi-chapter fic before, so, on that note... *throws confetti* Good job, me.  
**

**Special thanks to all you readers who stuck with the story 'til the end along with me. I'm glad you all enjoyed it so much! ^_^  
**

**Having said that, I'm probably not going to be writing anymore Monster High fics in the near future. It doesn't interest me as much to write about these days as it used to. But I'm glad I finished this one.**

**Again, thank you guys for sticking with me and these Jekyll-Hyde boys for the past two years. It's been fun!**

**Be seein' you!**


End file.
